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THE NOTE-BOOK 

OF AN 

INTELLIGENCE OFFICER 




\yiJ.<= ~+T/aJu^v (jLjtrtr^, 



An American serving in the British Army as Major in 63rd 
(R.N.) Inf. Division, attached G. H. Q.; I. D. Major Wood 
is now a Major in the 83rd Division of the National Army, 
at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio. 



THE NOTE-BOOK 

OF AN 

INTELLIGENCE OFFICER 



BY 

ERIC FISHER WOOD 

Author of "The Note-Book of an Attache, " 
"The Handwriting on the Wall/' etc, 



ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 

COLOR PLATES AND FACSIMILE 

DOCUMENTS 




PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. 

NEW YORK , . . MCMXVII 



^0 






Copyright, 1917, by 
THE CENTURY CO. 

Copyright, 1917, by 
The Cdrtis Publishing Co. 

Published, October, 1917 



NOV 21 1917 



BCLA< 77691 *V~ 



TO 
MY MOTHER 

WHO WISHED HER SON TO BE 

A SOLDIER IN A JUST CAUSE 

AND 

TO WHOM THESE LETTERS WERE 

FIRST WRITTEN 

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 



FOREWORD 

In arranging the material for this book, I 
have not invariably followed chronological order, 
except in the period covering the battles of the 
Somme, Vimy Ridge and Arras. 

The chapters on Lloyd George, Nbrthcliffe and 
Raemaekers, for instance, are for convenience 
placed consecutively, although in reality the in- 
terviews on which they were based took place 
some months apart. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I New York to Liverpool. .... 3 

II American Publicity 11 

III The British Postal Censorship . . 18 

IV "On Duty in London" 66 

V Liverpool to London 86 

VI Lloyd George . 93 

VII Raemaekers 113 

VIII NORTHCLIFFE 123 

IX To France 143 

X The Road prom Amiens to the Battle 

Front ......... 162 

XI The Ancre 184 

XII British Insignia, Equipment and Deco- 
rations 194 

XIII The Fall of Bapaume 205 

XIV The Unknown Hero 210 

XV Second-Lieutenant John Masefield . 215 

ix 



x Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVI Fragments .221 

XVII The New British Infantry Platoon . 237 

XVIII The Will to Use the Bayonet . . 254* 

XIX The German Retreat erom the Somme 269 

XX Before the Battle of Arras . . . 278 

XXI Materiel for the Battle of Arras . 302 

XXII The Battle of Arras 322 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Major Eric Fisher Wood .... Frontispiece 

PACING 
PAGE 

One of the rooms in the Library of German propa- 
ganda 24 

Some of the expert linguists in the Uncommon Lan- 
guages Department 24 

Facsimile letter of George Sanders, native-born 

American 28 

"Passed by the Censor" 36 

A typical table of mail examiners 40 

Colonel Arthur G. Tidy 40 

Facsimile of letter to Mr. Kramke, Assistant Edi- 
tor of the "Frankf orter Zeitung" .... 44 
Facsimile of letter from "Carl Oswald" regarding 

strikes 56 

David Lloyd George . . . . . . . .96 

Louis Raemaekers . . . 113 

A typical Northcliffe letter 124 

Lord Northcliffe ......... 136 

Major General Freyberg, V.C., D.S.0 152 

Major General Charteris, D.S.0 152 

Vice Admiral Beatty, G.C.B., D.S.0 152 

Captain Ball, V.C., D.S.O., M.C 152 

xi 



xii Illustrations 



PACING 
PAGE 



Commodore Tyrwhitt, D.S.0 152 

The village of Beaumont Hamel after its capture 

from the Germans in the Autumn of 1916 . 184 
Insignia of rank worn by British officers . . .196 

British Ribbons 200 

The City of Bapaume in flames 208 

The Nisson Hut 224 

The Church of Boisleux au Mont 272 

A batch of German prisoners at the Battle of 

Arras 280 

The residential section of the City of Arras after 

two years of German Bombardment . . . 292 

A battery of light field guns 304 

A six-inch heavy field gun 310 

A 9.2 inch heavy field howitzer 310 

"Mud" .314 

An advanced dressing station .,,... 328 



THE NOTE-BOOK OF 
AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER 



THE NOTEBOOK OF 
AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER 



NEW YORK TO LIVERPOOL 

U. S. M. S. "Philadelphia" December 2, 1916. 
At the outbreak of the present war, Americans 
were not only pacific but the majority of them 
readily acquiesced in the President's request that 
they should preserve an attitude of personal neu- 
trality. They at first conceived the war to be a 
struggle between two groups of nations actuated 
by similar motives and governed by the same 
fundamental moral principles. 

Their ultimate conversion to anti-Germanism 
was certainly not due to British propaganda, for 
to be quite candid, the publicity which Great Brit- 
ain accorded to America during the first thirty 
months of the war was so infinitely clumsy and 
stupid that it is a wonder that any Americans, 

3 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

other than those whom chance had placed in Eu- 
rope in a position to draw their own conclusions, 
ever came to a comprehension of the true state 
of affairs. 

Americans were reluctant to believe Germany 
as black as the Allies painted her. My own 
attitude of personal neutrality, for instance, was 
unshaken by anything that I read or heard in 
France, where I lived as an attache at the Ameri- 
can Embassy in Paris during the first four 
months of the war. At first I refused to let even 
accounts of the violation of Belgium printed in 
the French newspapers render me anti-German, 
considering it unfair to condemn Germany be- 
fore hearing her own side of the case. As a lover 
of fair play I continually discounted accusations 
leveled by partisans against their enemies. 

My conversion to anti-Prussianism did not 
commence until after I left France late in No- 
vember and spent nearly three months travelling 
in an official capacity through Germany, Austria 
and Hungary. 

In the early days of the war I endeavored to 
avoid the error made by a certain Southern Colo- 
nel who, having been elected judge more on the 
strength of his personal popularity than for legal 

4 



New York to Liverpool 

ability, electrified the court room on the occasion 
of his first presidence by greeting the lawyer for 
the defense as the latter rose to defend his client 
by exclaiming "Don't you say a thing, 'cos the 
lawyer for the prosecution has just made this case 
perfectly clear to me, but if you start talkin' I 
shall probably get it all mixed up." 

It was with the keenest desire to hear the "law- 
yer for the defense" that I reached Germany 
early in December, 1914. I expected there to 
hear refutations of the accusations brought 
against Germany by her enemies. While in Ger- 
many, I not only read all the German newspapers 
and periodicals which attempted to explain Teu- 
ton motives and actions, but I profited by my 
position as an official of a neutral country to 
listen to all special pleadings which German offi- 
cials or non-officials might care to voice. 

Not until I had read scores of articles written 
by German writers and listened to innumerable 
labored explanations made by Teuton officials did 
I find myself becoming violently anti-German. 
The very things of which the Allies had so bit- 
terly accused the Central Powers, the Germans 
themselves repeated as achievements of which 
they were proud to boast. 

5 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

The French and British, for instance, declared 
that the war had been deliberately planned and 
cynically brought about by Germany as a means 
of world conquest. To the French and British, 
and to all Americans not of German parentage, 
this seemed criminal. But when I reached Ger- 
many the same statements were eagerly repeated 
to me almost word for word as a frank and proud 
avowal of Germany's motives. 

An under-Secretary of the Imperial Foreign 
Office, for instance, carefully explained that, 
"since the conquests of 1866, 1867 and 1870, our 
Fatherland has doubled in population and more 
than quadrupled in wealth. Our hultur has al- 
ready reached the ultimate bounds of expansion 
possible with the limitations of worldly posses- 
sions now at our disposal. Great nations, how- 
ever, do not stand still; they either continue to 
expand, or commence to decay. The German 
Kaiserdom has reached that 'tide in the affairs 
of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to 
fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is 
bound in shallows and in miseries.' 

"Two alternatives are open to us. Either we 
must submit to our present limitations and the 
corollary of national decay, or we must use our in- 

6 



New York to Liverpool 

vincible army to gain a further extension of ter- 
ritory and an increase of our supply of raw ma- 
terials. We must win by conquest the harbors 
of Antwerp, the mines of Northern France, and 
the arable land of Poland." 

The Allies had said that Prussianized Ger- 
many believed implicitly in the doctrine that 
"Might is Right," justice and mercy being ut- 
terly ignored, and on reaching Germany I found 
that every problem, whether economic or moral, 
found its theoretical solution in Bismarck's in- 
famous words, "Macht geht vor Recht durch Blut 
und Eisen," — "Through Blood and Iron, Might 
replaces Bight." 

Throughout my stay in the Central Empires, 
I never once listened to an explanation of Ger- 
many's action in the present war which did not 
seem to me to verify and corroborate all the worst 
accusations which had previously been brought 
against her in France. 

"Because we are strong we are good," said the 
German; "because our nation of only seventy 
millions of people has held its own in battle 
against France, Belgium, Great Britain, and 
Russia with all their combined population of 
something like two hundred and fifty millions, 

7 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

therefore our hultur must be better than their 
civilization.'' 

I began slowly to perceive that there were deep 
underlying differences between the cause of the 
Allies and the aims of Germany, and such an 
absolute opposition between the moral views 
of the two parties, that a thing which looked 
very black to one appeared quite white to the 
other. 

When I left the Central Empires in February, 
1915, 1 had become a violent antagonist of Prus- 
sianized Germany and an ardent supporter of 
the cause of the Allies, although I did not im- 
mediately appreciate that the great war vitally 
concerned the United States. 

Indeed it was not until the ruthless destruction 
of the Lusitania that the majority of Americans 
began to perceive that the war was primarily a 
fight between Democracy and Liberty on the one 
hand and Autocracy and Tyranny on the other. 
For this we are not entirely to blame, for 
during the first two years practically all the news 
published in America, even by the most honest 
and patriotic papers, was subtly garbled by the 
shrewd and well-disguised system of German 
propaganda, the very existence of which was long 

8 



New York to Liverpool 

unrecognized until it was finally exposed by the 
British Postal Censorship. 

To-day a rapidly increasing number of Amer- 
icans are becoming more and more ashamed of 
their tardiness in grasping the fundamental dif- 
ferences which divide the two parties in the pres- 
ent world struggle, and hope that the United 
States will atone for the slowness with which it 
comprehended, by the decisive rapidity with 
which it will eventually act. 

Individuals are straws which tend to show the 
way the wind begins to blow, and thirty thousand 
Americans are already rendering service against 
Prussianism in the armies of France and Great 
Britain. Their number increases day by day. 

Having at last attained understanding and 
conviction, I am myself on my way to England 
to offer my services to the British Army, for it 
now appears a plain duty to offer personal serv- 
ice to Britain and France until the inevitable mo- 
ment when ponderous America herself enters the 
war. 

Although I shall be obliged to resign my com- 
mission as Major in the Officers' Reserve Corps 
of the United States Army before accepting a 
British commission, I regard this as a temporary 

9 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

measure only, for I do not lose sight of the fact 
that when the United States finally comes into 
the conflict, the things I shall have learned in 
the British Army will make me more useful to 
the American officers under whom I may then 
serve. 

I carry with me letters of introduction from 
Robert Bacon, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, and 
General Leonard Wood, and count upon these 
to smooth the difficulties which confront an alien 
who applies to join the British Army, especially 
if he does not wish to take the oath of allegiance 
to a foreign ruler. 

We who go to serve in the Allied armies have 
such faith in our Mother Country, to whom we 
yield proud unwavering allegiance, that we are 
confident that it will not be long before the 
United States as a nation takes the step which 
we now take as individuals. 



10 



II 

AMERICAN PUBLICITY 

December 20th. I brought with me to Eng- 
land several letters of introduction to Lord 
NorthclirTe which I sent to him this morning by 
messenger ; it is in England considered execrably 
bad form to mail an introduction. 

His answer came very promptly, arriving this 
evening at six-thirty, as I was busy writing at the 
St. James Club of which I have been made a 
temporary member. He invited me to lunch 
with Lady NorthclirTe and himself to-morrow at 
one fifteen, at their house in St. James Place. 

December 21st. I arrived at Lord North- 
cliffe's house promptly at the appointed hour. 
There were at luncheon eight people in all, 
among them the editor of the "London Times," 
the New York correspondent of the NorthclirTe 
papers, and the head of the British Red Cross (a 
brother of Lord Derby, the new minister of war) . 

We discussed at some length the failure of 
Great Britain and the United States better to 

II 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

comprehend each other's point of view in matters 
relating to the present war. 

A fellow American who was also a guest at the 
luncheon and who like myself had only recently 
arrived in England, joined me in protesting that 
there was a great deal of reason for America's un- 
enthusiastic point of view of English affairs and 
a great deal of stupidity on the part of the Brit- 
ish Government in handling neutral nations. 
The British members of the party seemed much 
surprised at this attitude which we two, neverthe- 
less, stoutly maintained. 

December 23rd. Lord Northcliffe sent for me 
to-day and asked me to write out the opinions on 
American publicity which I had expressed at 
luncheon the day before yesterday, in order that 
they may be published as an article in the "Lon- 
don Times" of next Tuesday. 

Once one has acquired a bent towards author- 
ship, one seems unable to break off the bad habit 
of bursting into print. 

December 26th. I finished my article for the 
"Times" yesterday and submitted it for Lord 
Northcliffe's approval. 

It appeared to-day as follows : 
12 



American Publicity 

"The Times" (London), Tuesday, December 26. 

BRITISH PUBLICITY IN THE 
UNITED STATES 

As an American publicist, I wish to congratulate 
the "Times" upon the excellent letters it is printing 
in advocacy of more effective publicity in the United 
States. . . . 

It is no exaggeration to say that 90 per cent of our 
American citizens have no adequate conception of what 
Great Britain is fighting for, nor any just appreciation 
of the splendid part she is playing both on sea and 
land. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Americans are 
asking the German-taught question, "What is England 
doing — besides making France fight for her? And 
what business is it of ours, anyway?" What other re- 
sult could Britain expect from her policy of discourag- 
ing American correspondents and limiting their pub- 
licity to official communiques? There are at the 
present date only two American correspondents at- 
tached to the British Armies in France. There ought 
literally to be hundreds. When the logical results of 
the policy of your Press Censorship began to manifest 
themselves in the United States the only apparent re- 
action which manifested itself in England was that the 
British became exasperated with the non-comprehen- 
sion of the Americans, thereby widening the growing 
breach and playing directly into Count von Bernstorff's 
hands. Great Britain certainly "has been had" by von 
Bernstorff. 

Many American writers like myself have steadfastly 

13 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

striven against the rising Teutonic tide ; we know that 
Great Britain is fighting our battles, and feel that the 
widening breach in sympathy between the two halves 
of the Anglo-Saxon race is a deplorable calamity which 
will prove disastrous to both parties. 

Far from encouraging American authors, the British 
authorities met them with hindrances and suspicions, 
and although offering no substitute, have denied them 
the opportunity to manufacture pro-British publicity. 
I do not venture to criticise the work of the British 
Press censorship within the Empire, for I know noth- 
ing of the problems there to be faced. However, if I 
were to be quite frank as to its application to the 
United States, I should be forced to state that it could 
not have been more destructively inefficient. It is in 
strong contrast to the German propaganda, which has 
been most assiduously carried on ever since the war 
began. Germany made mistakes at first, but she was 
willing to learn her lesson. 

She began by categorically telling the American 
people what they were to believe. Ready-made news 
was crammed down their throats, and Dr. Dernburg 
was sent to America to superintend the cramming. 
His failure was "kolossal" ! but Germany learned from 
his mistakes. She not only recalled and repudiated 
Dernburg, but henceforth, under the guidance of that 
expert in American psychology, Count von BernstorfF, 
she used highly effective indirect methods. 

Meanwhile the British authorities have scarcely 
deigned to pay any attention to American publicity. 

14 



American Publicity 

What little news has been reluctantly allowed to filter 
through has been altogether unsuited in source and 
substance, for American consumption. It has been 
coldly official. It has possessed no human or ethical 
appeal. It has been impersonal. It sometimes tam- 
pers with or suppresses the truth. 

In England, where contradiction is impossible, it 
may be effective to affirm that the submarine campaign 
is an utter failure, to conceal the fact that a certain 
unmentionable super-Dreadnought had been lost, or to 
prophesy a glorious victory at the Dardanelles; when, 
however, such items are given out in America in open 
competition with a wide-awake and aggressive German 
publicity bureau, the result is disastrous. Their un- 
truth is promptly proven by incontrovertible evidence, 
and the Germans scream gloatingly, "Once untruthful, 
always untruthful." 

The American people are very much like the British 
in the matter of publicity. If you try to drive them 
north they positively insist upon going south. 

France has known how to reach the sympathy of 
Americans, and her publicity has been extraordinarily 
effective. It has been personal and has evoked en- 
thusiasm. It has been written to a great extent by 
American soldiers in the French army, each of whom 
is an endorsement of France. The presence of every 
American participant is widely advertised by the 
French. He is decorated whenever there is the least 
occasion for doing so. He is encouraged to write of 
his experiences. Articles and books by American sol- 

15 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

diers of France are published by the score. Alan See- 
gar's poetry of the Foreign Legion is widely known in 
America and his death at the Somme was as much re- 
gretted in the United States as was that of Rupert 
Brooke in England. Robert Herrick, one of our best 
novelists, joined the American Ambulance with the 
avowed purpose of writing a series of books from the 
viewpoint of a participant. I was permitted to write 
and publish the' "Note-Book of an Attache" without 
ever submitting it to the French Censor. There are 
only about 500 Americans in the French Army, yet in 
the United States, we hear something about them every 
day. The newspapers are full of their doings; every 
item of news from them is justly considered as an 
endorsement of France. In consequence of France's 
shrewdly managed publicity America is whole-heartedly 
pro-French. 

If British publicity is to be effective in the United 
States, it must be widespread. It must be written not 
by one but by scores of reporters. Nor should it be 
written exclusively by correspondents, whether English 
or American, for the writings of the mere spectator 
tend to make of the war a cinema, which will never 
lead to moral rapprocliment. Because Ian Hay was 
a participant in the war, albeit not an American one, 
the publication of his book in the United States and his 
extended speaking tour shared with the books and 
speeches of Frederick Palmer the distinction of being 
the only redeeming bits of British propaganda. They 
have given the American public its first insight into 

16 



American Publicity 

Britain's true part in the war. Bruce Bairnsfather's 
drawings and Raemaekers' cartoons, still too little 
known in the United States, would prove an invaluable 
influence to mould public opinion. 

It is the testimony of the participant, and above all 
the American participant, which is most effective. 
If we Americans are to begin to appreciate that Brit- 
ain's battle is our battle, we must be allowed to know 
that 30,000 of our young men are fighting in the 
English and Canadian Armies, sharing the aims and 
ideals, the sufferings and the privations of those armies. 
These men are so many American endorsements of 
Great Britain's policy, and yet their presence in those 
armies is unknown in the States. I myself learned of 
it only two months ago on a chance visit to Canada. 

You in England should encourage your American 
soldiers to write publicity for home consumption. 
They know their audience. Their presence in the ranks 
is proof enough of their loyalty. Trust them. Aid 
them to recount their experiences and to tell of the 
dangers they have shared in a righteous cause. The 
British Empire fights in a just war and may well allow 
pro-Ally Anglo-Saxons to tell all the truth and then 
let the American public draw its own conclusions. If 
your authorities treat pro-Ally Americans with dis- 
trust and suspicion, they must expect to inspire like 
sentiments in the American public. 

Eric Fisher Wood. 

St. James Club. 



17 



Ill 

THE BRITISH POSTAL CENSORSHIP 

January 15th, 1917, For the purposes of or- 
ganization the British censorship is divided into 
three principal departments: The Naval Cen- 
sor, who examines wireless messages and searches 
couriers found upon the high seas; the Cable- 
Telegraph Censor; and the Postal Censor. 

Of these three the postal censorship is by far 
the largest and most important. It employs 
nearly five thousand people, the majority of 
whom are skilled linguists. 

Probably no single thing which the war has 
brought forth, excepting only the invasion of Bel- 
gium by the Germans, has so generally irritated 
and aroused the American public as the British 
Postal Censorship, which pries into all its letters 
without the politeness of offering the slightest 
apology. 

Yet it seems fairly evident that there must be 
some adequate explanation for its existence and 
some excuse for its intrusiveness, 

18 



The British Postal Censorship 

In order to pass profitably the necessary pe- 
riod of waiting while my commission in the Brit- 
ish Army was being put in order, I decided, soon 
after landing in England, to study the Postal 
Censorship and try to worm the truth about it out 
of the British authorities, — whom I fairly ex- 
pected would throw every possible hindrance in 
my way, under the pretext that to explain the 
censorship might in some remote way furnish the 
Germans with information of military value. I 
not only wished to satisfy my own curiosity in 
the matter, but felt that to offer a solution of the 
problem to my countrymen through the medium 
of the "Saturday Evening Post" would be a 
slight contribution to a better understanding be- 
tween the two countries of Britain and America. 

I soon found to my surprise that the British 
authorities were only too ready to have me pry 
into the censorship, and the heads of the organ- 
ization placed only one restriction on my activity, 
which was, that I should not approach the prob- 
lem hastily, but should devote enough time to 
the investigation to gain at least a grasp of its 
fundamentals. 

Until the recent change of government brought 
with it a relaxation in the habitual British policy 

19 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

of reticence, no writer had been privileged to 
examine the inner workings of the censorship. 
Mr. Lloyd George, however, is an extremely 
democratic premier, and believes not only in mak- 
ing every citizen of the empire his partner in the 
business of government, but also, so far as pos- 
sible, he desires to take neutrals into his confix 
dence. 

The previous British Government did not fully 
appreciate the importance of allowing neutrals to 
comprehend the difficulties which sometimes 
forced it to take drastic action. The last thing 
the new government wishes, is to seem to act in 
an arbitrary manner, or to refuse to explain the 
overwhelming justifications which invariably pre- 
cede the promulgation of restrictions. 

When I asked the officials to whom I brought 
introductions from America whether I might be 
allowed to penetrate the mystery which had 
hitherto surrounded the censorship, they ex- 
pressed the greatest willingness, and after I had 
been put upon my honor not to betray informa- 
tion that might be of military value to the enemy, 
I was accorded the entire freedom of the censor- 
ship departments. 

I was introduced into its various divisions by 



The British Postal Censorship 

& naval officer of high rank. It was early one 
afternoon when we started out to visit headquar- 
ters, in a building called Strand House, which is 
located in Portugal Street, in the most ancient 
parts of the City of London, and only a block 
from the original Old Curiosity Shop, made fa- 
mous by Dickens. 

On our way thither I expressed the hope that it 
would be possible to see nearly everything be- 
fore dinner, so that I might outline a magazine 
article that night and finish it the next day. The 
officer's only answer was an enigmatical British 
Navy man's smile, upon observing which I 
quickly added that the censorship was certainly 
worthy of careful study ; and that I should, there- 
fore, return the next morning, if by chance any 
interesting tag-ends had been left unnoted in the 
present visit. 

As we approached Portugal Street my escort 
pointed to a huge modern office building, six 
stories high, covering a small city block and in- 
formed me that it was Strand House. To say 
that I was astonished would be to state the case 
mildly. 

I was still more surprised to learn that the 
Wireless, the Cables and the Postal Censor- 

21 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

ship Departments were so large that they had 
to be accommodated in separate buildings; 
and that, moreover, the Postal Censorship not 
only fills Strand House but also several other 
large buildings in London and Liverpool, each 
of which is sub-divided into scores of depart- 
ments. 

During the afternoon, which seemed to pass 
with uncommon rapidity, I was presented to a 
number of the chief executives. Seven o'clock 
arrived before I had met them all or had even 
begun any examination of the building. 

I returned early next morning, thinking that 
I might by lunch-time finish the inspection. I 
ended by staying all day ; and when evening came 
I had not been able to see thoroughly more than 
a tenth part of what that one building contained. 

I stubbornly made up my mind to see the thing 
through if it took a month; for, even before I 
started, I had determined to avail myself to the 
full of the permission which had been given me to 
gain a comprehensive idea of the censorship and 
to write an accurate and well-studied account 
thereof; so back I went for a third day — and 
then a fourth. 

Days grew into weeks. It seemed as if every 



The British Postal Censorship 

time a new detail was mastered several additional 
essential and hitherto undetected items were dis- 
covered during the process. The executive staff 
soon commenced to accept my presence in the 
censorship building as a matter of course. After 
a time they began to regard me almost as one of 
themselves. I was allowed every privilege the 
executives themselves possessed, and was even 
given desk room for my writing and note taking, 
in that Holy of Holies, the censorship code room. 
I was allowed the unrestricted run of all the cen- 
sorship buildings, and was permitted, alone and 
unhindered, to pry into all the sacred nooks and 
corners. 

I wandered from floor to floor and from build- 
ing to building. I visited all the establishments 
in London; and then traveled to Liverpool to 
study the four huge buildings there devoted to the 
censorship of American mails. 

I was, in reality, attempting a detailed study 
of an organization akin to some great commer- 
cial enterprise made up of scores of branches, 
each dealing in a different product. The cen- 
sorship reminded me in many ways of a Chi- 
cago meat-packing factory, where pigs are in- 
jected suddenly at one end and undergo a rapid 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

sequence of surprises until they are ejected in 
various forms at the other end. The packing 
factory is said to make use of every part of the 
pig except the squeal. The censorship, however, 
goes one better than this, for it uses even the 
squeal. German squeals are, in fact, one of its 
most valuable and meaty extracts, for they in- 
dicate precisely where the war pinches the enemy, 
and enable the pinching to be proportionately in- 
creased. The censorship has, in fact, been 
largely designed and built up along lines indi- 
cated by German squeals. 

When I had devoted something over a month 
to the study of the censorship I was still very far 
from possessing a complete knowledge of its or- 
ganization. But I had begun to comprehend its 
importance and had arrived at a thorough appre- 
ciation of the fact that its suppression would give 
free play to the German spy system throughout 
the world, would subject Great Britain's cities to 
the danger of destruction by German incendiaries, 
would expose the lives of her statesmen to assas- 
sination by German agents, and would rob her of 
many of the fruits of her hard-won sea control, by 
enabling the enemy to obtain many of those 
sinews of war from which he is now cut off. 

24 




One of the rooms in the Library of German propaganda. 




Some of the expert linguists in the Uncommon Languages 

Department. 

The British Postal Censorship. 



The British Postal Censorship 

In 1914, when the European war became im- 
minent, Great Britain looked to her Foreign Of- 
fice and to her army and navy to protect her from 
her enemies, and to be her weapons of defense and 
offense; and she regarded the Royal Flying 
Corps and Scotland Yard as their principal aux- 
iliaries. 

The censorship of cables was a proceeding that 
had been foreseen and quietly planned for by a 
few farseeing staff officers ; but the postal censor- 
ship had not been taken into consideration at all, 
for the simple reasons that it was nonexistent and 
that no one had even begun to realize the mani- 
fold advantages, defensive and offensive, to be 
gained by an examination of the mails. 

To-day the censorship is more important than 
Scotland Yard or the Royal Flying Corps. 
Save only the Fleet and the Expeditionary Force, 
it is the most effective weapon Great Britain pos- 
sesses; and she would be almost as unlikely to 
abandon her army or her navy as to dispense with 
their most valued collaborator. 

The censorship has to-day developed into a 
most extraordinary organization — one of the 
most extraordinary in the history of the world. 
It also sets a new precedent for government de- 

25 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

partments ; for, instead of becoming a serious ex- 
pense to the nation, it not only pays its own cost 
but even yields the empire a fabulous profit. 

While Britain's army costs her more than four 
billion dollars a year and her navy more than 
three, the censorship actually saves the govern- 
ment something like half a billion dollars a year ! 
The total annual expense of its operation is only 
about two and a half million dollars; and it al- 
most repays this sum in each average working 
day. 

The British Censorship was very humbly born 
in the first days of September, 1914, in the base- 
ment of the General Post Office, in King Ed- 
ward's Building. In the hurry and anxiety of 
the days of Mons, Le Cateau and the Marne its 
advent was unnoticed and unheralded. Its orig- 
inal staff consisted of a dozen volunteers, and 
its sole purpose was to open letters sent by regu- 
lar mail from England to Germany and submit 
them to a cursory examination, with the idea of 
suppressing any that openly and frankly carried 
information of military value to the enemy. 

No effort was made to interpret the hidden 
meanings of the spy, to detect his code or to bring 
out his invisible writings. Letters to Holland, 

26 



The British Postal Censorship 

Denmark, Belgium, and other countries along 
the German frontiers, were thought to be inno- 
cent and were allowed to pass without examina- 
tion; at first, no organized effort was made to 
prevent the transmission of messages by courier, 
by agent, by wireless or by carrier pigeon. 

To-day, the British Censorship exercises sys- 
tematic control over all communications that cross 
the seas, whether they travel by sailing vessel or 
steamship, by cable or courier, by wireless or tele- 
phone. Each month it minutely examines fif- 
teen million messages ! No secret means of com- 
munication is too cleverly conceived to evade its 
watchfulness ; no bit of information is too trivial 
to escape its interested inspection. It supplies 
the armies and fleets of the Allies with news of 
the enemy's military and naval plans — "intelli- 
gence" it is technically called — which far exceeds 
in quantity and quality anything that could be 
furnished by the most perfect Secret Service. 

The members of the censorship trade depart- 
ment, many of whom were selected at the outset 
of the war for their already wide knowledge of 
business, have so steadfastly studied, in the aggre- 
gate, all German and British trade correspond- 
ence that to-day they know more about the 

n 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

market conditions of the world than ever mortal 
men have known before. 

It is a well-known fact that the Allies now do 
nearly all their buying of war material through 
common commissions. There is, for instance, a 
wool commission, through which the entire wool 
supply for all the Allies is purchased; and there 
are similar commissions for every other staple 
article of trade. This is called "unit buying," 
and is largely carried on in accordance with the 
information that has been collected, tabulated 
and supplied by the censorship, which prevents 
unscrupulous army contractors from fattening 
upon exaggerated profits at the expense of the 
war-stricken Allies, and thus saves literally hun- 
dreds of millions of dollars for the Allied treas- 
uries. 

The censorship collaborates with the navy in 
helping to maintain the vise-like quality of Brit- 
ain^ blockade of Germany. It sends the Fleet 
advance information of the ultimate destination 
of every important cargo crossing the seas. The 
total value of cargoes already condemned in prize 
courts amounts to many hundred millions of 
dollars ; and the censorship has not only furnished 
evidence in ninety per cent of all convictions, but 



HOTEL ROANOKE 


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George Sanders, the native-born American citizen, whose recent arrest 
caused so much excitement, has been under observation by the Federal 
Secret Service for more than six months, because on August 18, 1916, 
he wrote the following letter to Mr. H. Warnken, Delmenhorst, Olden- 
berg, Germany, a copy of which was duly forwarded to Washington by 
the British Censorship: 

Hotel. Roanoke, 
[Translation] 156 West Chippewa St., 

Buffalo, N. Y. 
Wear Mb. Warnken, 

You will, no doubt, be not a little astonished to receive a letter from the 
U. S. A. It is Sanders your former apprentice at the Gas and Water Works at 
Delmenhorst who writes you. ... 

"Pour weeks ago I was released from prison after spending eleven weeks 
Under arrest; very many powder-mills were blown up here and so the scoun- 
drels, the silly swine, locked me up. . . . Nothing was proved, but I am under 



suspicion. Ha! ha! evil seeds flourish. They are fighting at the front, — and 
we??;; — Censor, thoughts do not cost anything and are free from censorship. 
Do not for a moment suppose that the American People have anything to 
do with the crazy government. . . . 

The People are stupid, they only know what work is and their god is the 
dollar, that is all. 

Men born here have asked me whether we have motor-cars, gramaphones, 
electric light, etc., in Germany. And these Kaffirs, these yokels believe all 
that they are told by the English papers. . . ." 

Should this letter reach you please send me an answer to the address given 
below; letters are always forwarded to me. 
Many greetings and au revoir. 

Yours, 

(Signed) George Sanders, 

S.S. 2 "George Washington," • • 
Hoboken, N. J. U. S. A. 



The British Postal Censorship 

has nearly always discovered the existence and 
value of contraband cargoes in time to forewarn 
the Admiralty of their approach days or even 
weeks before they enter the war zone. 

Almost invariably it reveals in advance the 
ultimate destination of contraband shipments, 
which, consigned in the first instance to neu- 
tral countries, are really intended for reexport 
into Germany; and reveals it in time to permit 
of their being detained for trial before a prize 
court. It helps to annihilate Germany's export 
trade by withholding all correspondence relating 
thereto, and by seizing all German goods for- 
warded by mail. In a hundred ways it assists 
the navy in preventing Germany from obtaining 
supplies, money or credit from foreign countries, 
and thereby brings nearer the ultimate victory of 
the Allies. 

It also detects illegal transactions by British 
subjects. It has entirely stopped home trade 
with the enemy, even by the most roundabout 
routes; it has made it impossible for unpatriotic 
British individuals to send securities out of Eng- 
land and thereby avoid possible conscription of 
their wealth ; it has practically suppressed profit- 
making transactions, commonly referred to as 

29 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

"munition mongering," by those British firms not 
yet under government control. By withholding 
their mail it has, to a large extent, put a stop to 
the activities of certain German agents who, in all 
parts of the world, are engaged in raising the cost 
of foods and munitions by sending fictitious and 
extravagant offers to buy broadcast among deal- 
ers of neutral and Allied countries. 

The censorship each week intercepts and de- 
stroys tons of enemy propaganda sent out from 
Germany to neutral and Allied countries ; it fore- 
warns the local governments of Ireland and In- 
dia of seditions encouraged by Germany ; it sealed 
the fate of Roger Casement before that unsus- 
pecting individual had left Berlin. 

It prevents enemy spies from sending military 
information to Germany, and in many other ways 
counteracts the German Secret Service. It dis- 
covers, tabulates and co-ordinates the minutest 
details in the lives of important German agents 
throughout the world. It could convict hun- 
dreds of German- American citizens of treason 
against the United States; and has, in fact, fre- 
quently furnished the American Government 
with information regarding German plotters and 
disloyal German- Americans, thereby rendering 

30 



The British Postal Censorship 

valuable assistance to our State Department. It 
gave the tip that ultimately led to the conviction 
of Fay, the German dynamiter, and to the ex- 
pulsion of Boy-Ed, Von Papen and Dumba. 

It protects not only the British Empire but the 
world in general from enemy plots, and forestalls 
the destruction of factories and the assassination 
of officials. 

In spite of its importance and the vastness of 
its scope, the censorship is as yet little understood 
even in England. Because it causes petty annoy- 
ances for the average citizen, it is, therefore, 
treated by him with marked hostility. Grouchy 
Britons, who would consider it unpatriotic to vent 
their ill humor upon the army or the navy, make 
fair game of the censorship. Its very newness, 
its lack of precedent and the silence with which it 
works have all led to misconstruction and misun- 
derstanding. The aeroplane and the submarine, 
which have developed from nothing in as short 
a time as fifteen or twenty years, have yet been 
well understood and thoroughly appreciated by 
the general public, because their work is con- 
spicuous and spectacular. 

The British Censorship, which has sprung up 
like a mushroom in as many months, has failed, 

31 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

even in England, to win public sympathy — be- 
cause it is so unprecedented, because it works be- 
hind closed doors, and because it has been far too 
preoccupied with self-development to publish 
briefs in its own behalf. 

Until the present time it has been inarticulate 
toward the public at large. In the famous words 
of the two-fisted man with teeth it "speaks softly, 
but carries a big stick." 

The censorship is so new and has grown so 
rapidly that orders of precedence and promotions 
by seniority have yet to put in their appearance. 
It is, thus, almost unique among British institu- 
tions, in that youth and age, renown and ob- 
scurity, title and commonalty, all share alike in 
the opportunity for preferment. Ability is the 
sole passport to promotion. The two principal 
executives for American mails, for instance, were 
respectively twenty- four and seventy years old 
at the time of their appointment ; and several now 
most important heads of departments were totally 
unknown before the war. People of title work 
patiently and patriotically as mere translators, 
without any thought of employing their social or 
political importance as a lever for promotion. 
Nowhere is the wonderful new democracy of 

32 



The British Postal Censorship 

England more in evidence than in the depart- 
ment of the censorship. 

Though most of the higher executives were, 
even before the war, men of wide experience and 
training, yet they began at the bottom of the lad- 
der in the censorship and won their way to the 
top by sheer ability. New problems and novel 
difficulties have had to be faced; and the present 
chiefs have all succeeded because they possessed 
originality and imagination, as well as courage 
and perseverance. They have had no textbooks 
to guide them. They have had to make their 
own precedents as they went along. They have 
sailed uncharted seas. 

Taken all in all, they are a cosmopolitan lot. 
They have been gathered together from the far- 
thest corners of the British Empire, and are 
especially interesting for the contrasts they make, 
one with another. They include among their 
number a member of the Foreign Office, a broker, 
several college professors, a sailor, an author, 
three soldiers, a colonial administrator, a special 
constable, two prominent business men, and a 
college athlete but recently graduated from his 
university. 

They form a team that works splendidly to- 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

gether by combining varied talents and differing 
experiences into an excellent composite unit. 

George Sherwin Pearson, the chief postal cen- 
sor, had been in the diplomatic service and 
had wide experience in the East, notably in Con- 
stantinople. He is an amateur engineer, keenly 
interested in wireless telegraphy, and, previous 
to the outbreak of the war, had resigned from the 
Foreign Office, and was spending all his time in 
his laboratory and electrical workshop. Upon 
the declaration of hostilities he at once offered his 
services to his country and was assigned to the 
censorship, where he has been responsible for the 
policy since its inception. His services have al- 
ready won for him companionship in the Most 
Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. 
George. 

His principal assistant, Mr. Frank V. Worth- 
ington, the executive head of the postal censor- 
ship, had been Secretary for Native Affairs in 
Northern Rhodesia and chief executive officer of 
the Native Department, which controlled many 
hundreds of thousands of black natives. He is 
an extraordinary personality — one of the many 
remarkable men I met at Strand House. 

He was educated at one of England's big pub- 
34 



The British Postal Censorship 

lie schools, which, in the American sense of the 
word, are not public schools at all. He there dis- 
tinguished himself by such a profound distaste 
for Latin and Greek that he never rose above the 
fourth form. 

In 1892, when he was eighteen years old, his 
family secured the promise of an appointment in 
India, whereupon the young man who had so 
heartily detested dead languages set enthusiasti- 
cally to work to master Hindustani in three 
months. He was, however, never destined to see 
India, for a sudden change in administration in- 
terfered with his appointment and put an effec- 
tual stop to his interest in Hindustani. 

Nothing daunted, he soon afterward went out 
to South Africa, arriving at the epoch of the 
Matabele War, when Cecil.Rhodes was carrying 
through that series of operations which eventually 
won a large section of Africa for the British Em- 
pire. Worthington played a young man's part 
in those exciting times ; and a few years later, at 
the epoch of the Jameson raid, he was one of 
eleven Englishmen who rode armed through the 
streets of Johannesburg and set the example that 
brought thousands of other Englishmen under 
arms before night. 

35 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

He subsequently escaped into Rhodesia in time 
to participate in the Matabele Rebellion as a 
trooper of Matabeleland Relief Force under 
Colonel, now Lieutenant General, Plumer. It 
was at this period that he first came to the notice 
of Rhodes, one of whose trusted workers he was 
destined to become. The great Empire Builder 
was then at the zenith of his splendid career, and 
personally supervised the campaign against the 
Matabele tribe. 

The young trooper quickly realized that his 
best chance for future success in Africa lay in 
being favorably known to Rhodes, and he, there- 
fore, hoped that some unforeseen opportunity 
might occur to bring him to Rhodes' attention. 
The Empire Builder was, however — for a mere 
private — well-nigh unapproachable, and the war 
reached its halfway point without the longed- 
for chance occurring. 

Worthington, therefore, coolly decided to 
manufacture his own opportunity. Acting on 
the principle that "a cat may look at a king," he 
one morning approached Rhodes' tent as that 
great man was shaving himself before a small 
pocket mirror. 

Worthington seated himself upon a near-by 
36 



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f*P# 



The British Postal Censorship 

stone to observe the operation. He watched in- 
tently every dip of the brush and every stroke 
of the razor, until at last the Empire Builder be- 
gan to be irritated by this scrutiny and ordered his 
servant to find out what the trooper wanted. 
The reply came like a shot, "A job after this 
war!" 

Rhodes appreciating the situation, laughed 
and said: 

"Well! You are forehanded with a venge- 
ance! If you don't get killed, come back to me 
after the war, and we'll see about it." And 
when the war was nearly over Worthington again 
approached Rhodes, saluted, and reminded him 
of his promise. 

"Tell me your story," said Rhodes, and the 
young trooper accordingly gave the details of 
his family, education and past history. 

"I don't believe a word of it," thundered 
Rhodes, whereupon Worthington handed him a 
package of papers, saying, — "I knew you 
wouldn't, sir, so I brought proofs." 

He was asked to dinner with the staff, followed 
up his advantage, and eventually received his 
coveted job. Thus began a connection that 
lasted until Rhodes' death. 

37 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

Mr. Worthington's rise was rapid; and in 1901 
he became Secretary for Native Affairs in 
Northern Rhodesia, where he played a large part 
in many important reforms, one of the most valu- 
able of which was to accomplish the seemingly 
impossible task of abolishing slavery in a manner 
entirely satisfactory to the government, the 
slaves and the owners. 

At the beginning of the great war he, like so 
very many others of England's sons, hastened 
home to the Tight Little Isle he had so rarely vis- 
ited during the past twenty-five years, in order to 
play his part in the empire's battle for existence. 
Fate led him into the censorship. 

One of his principal subordinates was Col, Ar- 
thur C. Tidy, resident executive in charge of the 
censorship of American mails at Liverpool. 
Colonel Tidy was a retired army officer, more 
than seventy years old. He had long believed 
that a great European war was inevitable, and 
had so shaped his life that he might be an efficient 
soldier ready to play his part when the hour 
struck. It had been his fondest hope that, when 
the time came, he might command a regiment, 
and it was with poignant regret that he reached, 
a decade ago, the age of retirement; for, like so 

38 



The British Postal Censorship 

many true soldiers, he had hoped that his life 
might eventually end in death in the service of 
his country. 

When the great war finally broke over Europe, 
he humbly volunteered for service in any ca- 
pacity, great or small, wherein he could be of the 
slightest use. He was assigned to the censor- 
ship, and there his ability and tact soon raised 
him to his high position of responsibility. He 
who had feared he was a "reject" came to com- 
mand fifteen hundred picked linguists, or more 
than the equivalent in numbers of a British regi- 
ment. 

For nearly two years he held his post ; and dur- 
ing that time he supervised the censoring of al- 
most a quarter of a billion letters and packets, 
without ever having allowed a single harmless 
American letter, after its arrival in his depart- 
ment, to miss the next outgoing steamer. Mil- 
lions of Americans have, during the past two 
years, promptly received their mail, without in 
the least realizing how much credit was due to the 
fidelity and intelligence of this splendid old pa- 
triot. 

I visited his office in Liverpool early this year, 
and at that time took the accompanying photo- 

39 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

graph of Colonel Tidy. The old man was then 
ill with a severe cold, which he had contracted a 
few days before when overworked by a big rush 
of United States mail. The very morning of my 
visit the doctor had ordered him to go home and 
go to bed, but was met with an uncompromising 
refusal, because the old soldier, with a disregard 
of his own comfort or safety, refused to leave his 
post of duty. 

The following day, his cold suddenly became 
worse ; and three days later he died — twenty- four 
hours before his name was mentioned in dis- 
patches. He died without learning of this fit- 
ting culmination to his career. It seems to me 
scarcely an exaggeration to say that the old man 
attained his fondest wish and met death while on 
duty in command of his regiment, though he him- 
self probably never realized the analogy. 

From the highest to the lowest, all persons in 
the censorship are picked men, selected from a 
much larger number of candidates. Examiners 
of letters are accepted for duty only after a most 
exhaustive research has been made into their 
qualifications, antecedents and parentage, and 
after they have spent nearly four weeks in a 
special school of training, where the course is so 

40 



Colonel Artii 

One of the chief exec 

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The British Postal Censorship 

strict that from thirty to forty per cent of its stu- 
dents are rejected as unable to qualify. 

A candidate for the position of examiner must, 
first of ail, fill out a long application blank, giv- 
ing full particulars as to his past history and 
previous occupations, and, also, must present 
the names of three responsible British subjects 
who are willing to vouch for his reliability. All 
these statements are finally verified by Scotland 
Yard, which makes an additional investigation 
with a view to discovering any facts that might 
cast doubt upon the honesty of the applicant. 

Even when candidates have fulfilled all these 
requirements, and have been definitely accepted, 
they are still under constant supervision. 

Each receives definite consignments of letters 
to censor, and must, when his work is completed, 
invariably return to his superior a correct tally of 
all the mail that has passed through his hands. 
Moreover, each examiner is known by a number, 
which he is required to affix to every letter he 
opens, so that if any addressee objects to the man- 
ner in which his mail has been treated, the cause 
for complaint can be traced back to the particular 
examiner who dealt with it. 

No examiner is allowed to hold up a letter on 
41 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

his own responsibility ; he has but two alternatives 
— he must either pass the letter as harmless, or 
affix a statement of his grounds for suspicion and 
then refer it to a higher authority for final de- 
cision. His routine work is constantly submit- 
ted to reexamination, not only to guard against 
stupid mistakes, but also to insure neatness and 
rapidity. 

This supervision is uniform and is applied to 
every member of the censorship, so that it is 
practically impossible for an inefficient or care- 
less individual to escape detection. 

The tests applied are most effective, but some- 
times amusing for their very simplicity. One 
candidate for service in the Uncommon Lan- 
guages Department, for instance, posed as an 
authority on Slavic languages, but was sus- 
pected of pretending to more knowledge than he 
actually possessed. A supervisor conceived the 
idea of writing a letter in exaggerated Yorkshire 
dialect, and, with several others, submitted it to 
him for verification. 

The downfall of the soi-disant language expert 
occurred when, after puzzling over this letter for 
a considerable time, he finally announced that it 
was written in an obscure dialect of Northeastern 

42 



The British Postal Censorship 

Lithuania and was quite guiltless of military in- 
formation. 

Broadly speaking, the British Censorship has 
two principal functions: To act as a deterrent 
to all the enemy's undertakings; and to collect 
and coordinate information for the use of the 
various departments of its own government. 

Its effect as a deterrent can no longer be esti- 
mated by the number of prize cargoes captured 
or by the number of spies convicted. 

It is analogous to the wire fences charged with 
electricity that surround prison camps, of which 
the deterrent effect cannot be judged by the num- 
ber of corpses hanging on the strands; for the 
more impassable the fence, and the more the dan- 
ger of approaching it is understood, the smaller 
will be the number of prisoners who attempt to 
escape; and consequently the fewer will be the 
resultant corpses. 

As a deterrent, the effect of the British Censor- 
ship has been twofold. It has paralyzed the 
enemy's commercial enterprises in foreign lands 
and cut him off from the receipt of supplies, 
credit and securities. It has also foiled his plots 
in allied and neutral countries and checkmated his 

43 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

widespread spy system. Thus, the deterrent ef- 
fect of the censorship upon German trade corre- 
spondence has become so great, that German busi- 
ness men have been forced to abandon the effort 
to correspond with their trade associates to such 
an extent that, though five hundred thousand 
business letters between America and Europe 
were examined in the month of December, 1916, 
less than ten were found to belong to enemy 
traders. 

In hampering German spies, the censorship has 
become so effective that it has forced them to 
almost entirely abandon writing as a means of 
communication, and has compelled them to resort 
to the slower and less dependable method of send- 
ing information by private messengers. So that, 
though the censorship has constantly become 
more efficient in detecting spy correspondence, it 
now finds but one spy letter for every thousand 
it discovered in 1915. 

In addition to its effect as a deterrent the cen- 
sorship is a compiler of information that far ex- 
ceeds, both in quantity and in quality, all other 
available sources combined. Moreover, a great 
part of its invaluable intelligence could not be ob- 
tained in any other manner. It is a clearing 

44 



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A letter to Mr. Kramke, the Assistant Editor of the "Frankforter 
Zeitung" and signed "Otto," contains the following illuminating passages: 

[Translation] New York. 

Dear Fkiexd Heixeich, 

As promised, I am sending you herewith a few newspaper cuttings from 
which you will see how matters stand here and what is the public opinion. 
Our good Fry and his companions were unfortunately sentenced to penal 
servitude yesterday, because he had made a few harmless bombs. There is at 
present a great hue and cry among the Yankees. . . . 

I will send you by the next mail a small sample bomb (it is not loaded) 
the sort which we now make, much smaller, but nevertheless much more 
effective than the large ones and easier to manipulate and place; it is the 
sort with which we sank the 1500 horses and 600 war motor-cars here on 



the so-called North River near New York a short time ago. We could already 
have destroyed the Canadian Canal, but we were betrayed. Mr. BernstorfY, the 
Ambassador in Washington, sent us word that we should lie still for a short 
time, until the excitement caused by the affair had somewhat subsided and 
that we should then once more go to. We have plenty of money, but it is 
a problem how and where to buy materials . Fry was sometimes very impru- 
dent. If he is sent to prison, we shall blow up the prison; then the Yankees 
will have no more prison. , 

( Signed ) Yours, Otto. 
P. S. Well the good brother got 8 years and he got off easily at that; they 
wanted to give him 12. . . . The disagreeable thing for him is that the 
Yankees do not give him anybody to wait on him as a former Prussian officer. 
• . . Bernstorff says: "If he himself does not soon get loose, we will get him 
out after the war." 



The British Postal Censorship 

house for the millions of messages that pass 
through England each month, all of which are 
potential intelligence carriers. It searches them 
indefatigably for bits of information which it 
coordinates with all the bits already gleaned 
from other sources. It takes a thousand mean- 
ingless little variegated fragments and fits them 
into the completed picture puzzle. Starting with 
a thousand colored threads, spun from a hundred 
different spools, it reconstructs the fabric of the 
enemy's secret thought. 

Once it has obtained and coordinated this in- 
telligence, the responsibility of the censorship 
ceases. It is no part of its duty to take action 
upon the information gathered. Its business is 
to detect, to coordinate, and to forward promptly 
to the various departments of the War Office, the 
Admiralty, the Trade Bureau and the Foreign 
Office the result of its work. Here its responsi- 
bility ends. 

If it learns, for instance, that Zeppelins are 
about to raid London, it informs the Home De- 
fense Department of the War Office, the Naval 
Air Service Department of the Admiralty, and 
any other department interested in anti-aircraft 
operations, and leaves subsequent action to them. 

45 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

There is, of necessity, a great variation in the 
volume of mail passing through the Postal Cen- 
sorship. Sometimes, for several days at a time, 
it dwindles away to almost nothing; while on 
other occasions, when several large steamers from 
different parts of the world arrive simultane- 
ously, it increases to a perfect flood. 

This unavoidable variation leads to the most 
difficult problem with which the executive force 
has to deal. The five thousand employees are 
theoretically sufficient to cope rapidly and effi- 
ciently with, maximum mails. As a necessary 
consequence, a considerable percentage of the to- 
tal staff is obliged to be idle during dull times. 
This evil is, however, put up with in order that 
neutral mails may not be unduly retarded; for 
Great Britain, having discovered the vital im- 
portance of the censorship and having deter- 
mined, on no conditions, to relinquish it, there- 
upon began to take all possible steps, at any lesser 
sacrifice, to prevent its becoming unnecessarily 
irksome to neutrals. 

It has been deemed inadvisable to allow even 
neutral mails to pass uncensored to Scandinavia 
and Holland, because those countries have proved 
to be honeycombed with German agents and with 

46 



The British Postal Censorship 

intermediaries, who allow their names to be used 
as covering addresses, and thereby act as relay 
depots for the communications that German spies 
in all parts of the world attempt to send to their 
headquarters in Berlin. Entire sacks of mail, 
coming from neutral countries and directed to 
Gothenburg, Stockholm or Flushing, have, upon 
examination, been found to contain nothing but 
commercial and military reports sent from Ger- 
man spies and agents in neutral and Allied coun- 
tries to the Wilhelmstrasse and its subsidiaries. 
German agents have been known to send "intelli- 
gence" from an Allied country to Germany 
through as many as four neutral countries in suc- 
cession, in the hope that the British Censorship 
would be deceived as to its true source and ulti- 
mate destination. 

The whole effect of the censorship would be 
vitiated if it refrained from opening neutral 
mails and confined itself to the examination of 
letters and packets proceeding by direct routes to 
the Central Empires; for Germany would then 
avail herself of neutral intermediaries to carry 
on her intrigues. 

Though Great Britain has thus found it neces- 
sary to examine even neutral mails, she has made 

47 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

every possible effort not to inconvenience neutrals 
unduly and not to abuse the privilege she has been 
forced to take to herself. During my study of 
the censorship, I saw no evidence that the business 
correspondence of neutrals was ever retarded 
more than a day or two, or that the commercial 
information contained therein was ever made use 
of, unless it was clearly evident that the writers 
were acting as intermediaries for German trade. 
The only business letters that seemed to be with- 
held or utilized were those written by British sub- 
jects or by enemy citizens or agents. 

An interesting illustration of the censorship 
endeavors not to delay neutral letters is furnished 
by the case of mails from America to Scandi- 
navia. Ships from the United States to Sweden 
or Norway almost invariably touch at a 
British port. There are numerous reasons for 
this. They frequently have mail or cargoes for 
England. Moreover, such ports as Falmouth 
possess special bunkering facilities. Welsh 
steam coal is the finest in the world and gives the 
highest mileage per ton and per unit of cost. In 
addition the British cruisers frequently exercise 
the right of search for contraband, which belongs 
to every belligerent; and this is a tedious and 

48 



The British Postal Censorship 

time-wasteful job if undertaken on the high seas, 
especially when the weather is bad ; whereas, ships 
touching at British ports are searched in port and 
thus escape the more troublesome examination at 
sea. 

As soon as a vessel bound from America to 
Scandinavia docks at a British harbor, its mails 
are promptly removed and transported on an ex- 
press train to the Postal Censorship in London. 
Their arrival is awaited by a large staff, which has 
been assembled while the express train is on its 
way, and which performs the necessary examina- 
tion with the greatest possible dispatch, some- 
times finishing a thousand bags in as short a time 
as eight hours. 

The mails passed by the censors are then placed 
upon another express train, and reach The Downs 
in time to be replaced upon the same steamer 
from which they were removed at Falmouth, 
when that steamer calls at The Downs for her 
final clearance papers. 

In actual practice, the maximum staff has 
sometimes proved inadequate to deal with an ex- 
ceptional flood of mail. In such an emergency, 
time limits are established for all mails, beyond 
which they may not be detained in the censor- 

49 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

ship. Letters from England to America, for in- 
stance, are never held longer than twenty-four 
hours ; and on several occasions, before the censor- 
ship had become as efficient as it now is, large 
consignments of mail, still unexamined, were 
promptly forwarded at the expiration of that 
time limit. 

The Postal Censorship is divided into the cen- 
sorship of American mails, situated at Liverpool, 
which employs fifteen hundred people, and the 
censorship of European mails, situated in Lon- 
don, employing over three thousand people. The 
sole reason for maintaining a separate branch 
at Liverpool is to decrease the delay imposed 
upon American mails. 

The Liverpool and the London branches are 
organized along similar lines. Each is sub- 
divided into departments for commercial and for 
private mail. 

The first step in the process of censoring oc- 
curs when the General Post Office delivers mail 
bags to the mail-censorship department. The 
latter records the country of origin, the country 
of destination, the weight of each bag, and other 
statistical particulars. 

The unopened bags are then handed to the 
50 



The British Postal Censorship 

sorting department. The sorters are divided 
into groups. Each group deals with the con- 
tents of all bags having their destination or origin 
in one particular foreign country. Privileged 
correspondence and suspect letters are first ex- 
tracted for special treatment, and then the re- 
maining correspondence is divided into trade and 
private — the two principal classes. 

Privileged correspondence and the letters of 
suspects are recognized by the aid of lists, that 
give the names and addresses of diplomats who 
receive their correspondence unexamined, and of 
suspects whose letters must be examined with 
particular care. Sorters commit to memory the 
names of privileged and of suspected persons. 
There is a very long list of suspects; and as it is 
necessary to limit the number of names that the 
sorters must memorize, they are formed into 
groups, each one of which deals exclusively with 
the mails to and from a particular country. 

The sorters make the selection between trade 
communications and private communications by 
the outward appearance of the envelopes. A 
trade letter is easily distinguished by the fact that 
the name of the firm is printed in the corner of 
the envelope or on the flap, and that it is directed 

51 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

to a commercial address. Occasionally a mistake 
is made ; but there is machinery to put a wrongly 
sorted letter back into its proper course. 

Privileged correspondence is immediately re- 
turned uncensored to the Post Office ; suspect let- 
ters are transferred to the proper department for 
special examination; trade and private mails are 
then delivered to the tables of the censoring de- 
partments which are charged with their examina- 
tion. 

The actual examination of letters is carried on 
in the censoring departments by readers, nearly 
all of whom understand at least English, Ger- 
man and French, and seventy per cent of whom 
read other languages in addition. These ex- 
aminers are organized into groups of from six- 
teen to thirty-two censors, each group of which is 
carefully constituted from a linguistic point of 
view, so that any particular one of the several lan- 
guages spoken by the twenty-odd nationalities 
of Europe's polyglot population will be under- 
stood by at least one of its readers. 

Each group works at its own large table, under 
a foreman called a deputy assistant censor, who is 
responsible for the discipline and efficiency of his 
table. All suspicious letters are referred to him 

52 



The British Postal Censorship 

for decision. Each table thus becomes a well- 
balanced team under a team captain, and is com- 
petent, without outside help, to deal with letters 
in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, 
Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Gaelic, 
Norwegian and Flemish. 

By successive sortings, trade correspondence is 
gradually sifted apart, so that one reader ex- 
amines all the mail of a certain group of writers 
and addresses. Letters to firms dealing in 
metals, textiles, foodstuffs, banking, insurance 
or shipping, for instance, are distributed to the 
particular examiners who have had most expe- 
rience in the censoring of correspondence con- 
nected with the particular branch of commerce 
concerned. 

A twofold object is thus attained; not only 
is the special knowledge possessed by each ex- 
aminer made use of to the best advantage, but 
each is made to regard his particular group of 
correspondents as clients or old acquaintances. 
Transactions between the United Kingdom and 
foreign countries can thus be watched with a 
maximum of efficiency, for each examiner knows 
the peculiarities and foibles of his correspondents 
and instantly recognizes an old friend or a sus- 

53 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

picious character; if an enemy trader even once 
commits a single indiscretion, it reflects upon 
everything he subsequently writes. 

Letters that the initial examiner finds to be 
harmless and unobjectionable are sent on without 
delay; but a letter that is in any way peculiar 
is referred to the deputy assistant censor in 
charge of the table, who decides whether the ex- 
aminer's suspicions are justified. If he concurs 
in them he may do one of several things: He 
may send the letter to the blacklist department, or 
may refer it to the testing department or to the 
uncommon-language department ; or he may sub- 
mit it to a higher authority for transmission as in- 
telligence to the War Office, Trade Department, 
Admiralty or Foreign Office. 

In addition to the actual censoring depart- 
ments, the censorship contains a large number of 
auxiliary sections and subsections, some of which 
have already been mentioned. 

In the Uncommon-Language Department 
eighty of the most expert linguists of Great Brit- 
ain are gathered together. They examine letters 
written in obscure dialects and in such languages 
as Chinese, Lettish, Hindustani, Malay, Maltese, 
Hungarian, Arabic and Czech. 

54 



The British Postal Censorship 

A Press Room has been created to afford 
special facilities in the way of prompt examina- 
tion and transmission for communications emana- 
ting from newspaper correspondents, and in- 
tended for publication in the press of neutral 
countries. Correspondents of neutral journals 
send their manuscripts direct to this room, where 
they are examined and sent on within a few hours. 

American representatives have access to the 
Press Room at all times, and are there able to 
post their material up to four o'clock on the day 
previous to a sailing date, special facilities being 
employed to transport their correspondence to 
Liverpool and other ports of departure, in time to 
catch the steamer before it sails next morning, 
All letters from American editors to their corre- 
spondents in England are mailed from New 
York in special bags, which are sent to the Press 
Room in London on the first train after the 
steamer docks; whereupon the Press Room calls 
all the reporters by telephone and informs them 
that the mail has arrived. 

There is a Censorship Museum to which all vis- 
itors are taken, where are exhibited samples of 
the various German merchandise held up by the 
censor. The principal articles exported from 

55 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

Germany by mail are books, diamonds, jewelry, 
drugs, chemicals, dyes, violin strings, lace, seeds 
and instruments. Six thousand sacks of such ar- 
ticles are being detained until the end of the war, 
in order that Germany may not receive financial 
credit therefor, until after peace has been de- 
clared. 

The principal articles of trade addressed to 
Germany are food, rubber and leather. The 
need for these articles is so keenly felt in the 
Central Empires that Germans in neutral coun- 
tries try every conceivable method to get sup- 
plies thereof into Germany. Three thousand 
one-pound packets of rubber were, by one man, 
dispatched to Germany by registered mail at dif- 
ferent times during a period of several months. 
Hams are frequently sent by first-class mail, 
sometimes paying postage to the amount of five 
to six dollars. 

In the testing department, Britain's best re- 
search chemists and scholars match their wits 
against those of the wily enemy spy to dis- 
cover his secret writings and decipher his compli- 
cated codes. An extraordinary lot of men they 
are — gleaned from Oxford and Cambridge, from 

56 



Hate! Karl 



SEATTLE. I 



,J„.~r 







//^ (S&r*,^ 




fa 



{H'etjttXAut'a, 



j2/<Jd«^* 






Matefiarl 



j*p 



Seattle. Wash. _____ 

e £<J-J l >Ar #74.*.f0ja~ v~p A,/ *,*/~ & a Ju. 
cfe* & Awn**- fi> «• &#*: -/*/*#<- *#■ ^^ 






Hotel lar! 






crisis* jfi-syr* jhrjb. A"»ty** f&tS'**- <&* 






£2j 



A letter written on August 2, 1916, to R. Langnickel, Hoyerswerda, 
Schlesein, Germany, by his son, who uses the name Carl Oswald as an 
alias and gives 203 First Avenue, Seattle, as his address, contains the 
following statements: 

"Things are looking black here; I believe that a revolution is possible. . . • 
We have traitors and rascals as president. 

What do you in Germany think of America and Mexico? The United States 
has sent thousands of soldiers to Mexico to catch one man, — and haven t 
caught him yet. It is ludicrous. 



On Sunday there was an explosion of several million dollars worth of 
dynamite and cartridges on an island near New York, and hundreds of people 
were killed. ... I was highly delighted. I am not even sorry for the people 
who were killed. . . . 

There is death and murder going on here in Seattle; two or three police- 
men have been shot since I came here. . . . Two large steamers destined for 
Russia are lying here, and the men who arc to load them are striking, and 
there is no one to do the work. You can imagine what their cargoes are to be. 
The president of the union is a German ... and wants to prolong the strike 
as much as possible. ..." 



The British Postal Censorship 

Edinburgh and London, from Dublin and Glas- 
gow. Intense workers — quiet and reserved, but 
deadly keen — they become so absorbed in their 
subtle and fascinating game of hunting the King 
of Big Game, that they know not the eight-hour 
day, but often work from morning till evening, 
and from evening round the clock again to morn- 
ing. 

They are self-effacing, but take great pride in 
each other's achievements. When first I visited 
their workshop, one of their number, a pro- 
fessor of chemistry, pointed with brotherly pride 
to an inoffensive little ex-professor of history and 
said: "He is one of our very best men. His 
reconstructive conclusions are nothing short of 
miraculous. To-day, for instance, he is just put- 
ting the finishing touches on a case that will add 
yet another notch to his tally of dead spies." 

The fondest hope of their chief, whose achieve- 
ments far surpass those of the fictitious heroes of 
Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe, is that he 
may, after the war, meet and match scores with 
his real antagonists, the men "higher up" in Ber- 
lin who are behind the spies. It is with them 
that he plays a game akin to blindfold chess. 
The spies are but silly pawns pushed tentatively 

57 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

forward to be sacrificed for the slightest advan- 
tage in this eerie game. 

Some of his feats in checkmating the German 
Secret Service are playing an important part in 
the outcome of the war. For instance, the Ger- 
man forces in East Africa had been cut off from 
communication with other German forces and 
from Berlin by the destruction of their wireless 
sending station at Dar-es- Salaam. This caused 
serious complications, since it was of vital impor- 
tance that reports of the exact state of their cam- 
paign should reach the great General Staff in 
Germany. 

The Germans in East Africa learned that pris- 
oners taken by the British, after having been put 
upon parole not to abuse the privilege by at- 
tempting to forward military information to Ger- 
many, were immediately allowed to write home. 
Taking this fact as a point of departure, the Ger- 
mans worked out a plan which they believed could 
not fail to achieve their purpose. 

They concocted an invisible sympathetic ink, 
and with it filled the toothwash bottle of a trusted 
Prussian officer, who thereupon went out scout- 
ing and purposely allowed himself to be captured 
by the British. As had been anticipated, he was 

58 



The British Postal Censorship 

allowed the privilege of writing to Germany to 
announce his capture, and to state that he was 
well and unwounded. He composed a long let- 
ter, praising the treatment he received from the 
English and saying that he was happy and con- 
tented. 

Before he posted this perfectly innocent 
missive, however, he steamed the envelope in 
which it was to be sent until it could be unfolded 
into a flat sheet of paper. He then wrote his 
military report in secret ink on the inside, remade 
the envelope, placed his letter therein, and posted 
it to Germany. 

In due time it reached the British Censorship, 
where the head of the testing department had 
given orders that all communications written by 
Prussian officers, whether under parole or not, 
should be submitted to him. He merely glanced 
through the letter and immediately called an as- 
sistant. 

"The writer of this," he said, "is up to some 
deviltry. I deduce this from the fact that he 
omits to complain of not having a servant to wait 
on him. Such a grumble is invariably the first 
one that a Prussian officer makes when he reaches 
prison — that is, unless he is up to some crooked- 

59 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

ness and is trying to sugar the pill. Take this 
letter and examine it carefully; and don't bring 
it back to me until you find what is wrong with 
it." 

Within an hour the assistant had discovered 
and developed the secret writing on the inside of 
the envelope. The testing department thus con- 
verted their opponent's forward pass into a touch- 
down for their own side ; for the information con- 
tained in the document was far more valuable to 
the British than it would ever have been to the 
enemy, as will be incontrovertibly shown by the 
partial translation which follows : 

"The commandant expects a ship from America to 
Southwest Africa next month. . . . The commandant 
intends ... to hold up the British Army of sixty 
thousand men by a slow retreat and thus keep it away 
from more important theaters of war. . . . The state 
of health of our army is satisfactory, there being only 
twenty-five cases of typhus at P.'s hospital in Mombo. 
. . . Medicaments, however, are very short ; but we 
have begun to produce quinine at Amani and along the 
Central Railway. All other stores for Europeans are 
available ; even cigarettes, chocolate and schnapps are 
being manufactured, and also leather boots. . . . Un- 
til the end of March rainfall was so slight that there 
was insufficient water for our native troops. . . . The 

60 



The British Postal Censorship 

traitor Von Maidell is at New Moschi, with the British. 
This we know from Peterholz [evidently the Doctor 
P. previously referred to] who stayed behind in his 
professional capacity at the capture of New Moschi, 
and has since been returned to us." 

Next to the testing department, one of the most 
interesting sections of the censorship is the li- 
brary of German war literature, in which are pre- 
served for reference sample copies of all the Ger- 
man propaganda that reach the censorship 
through the mail. It contains an almost com- 
plete collection of all textbooks produced in Ger- 
many since the war began, and intended for distri- 
bution to the myriads of her agents scattered 
throughout all the countries of the world. Here 
the visitor beholds thousands upon thousands of 
books and pamphlets published under the super- 
vision of the Propaganda Section of the Wilhelm- 
strasse. 

Nearly every section of every country in the 
world seems to have been supplied with carefully 
studied pro- German publicity, written in its own 
patois or dialect, and composed in strict sym- 
pathy with its particular local traditions and in- 
terests. Without duplication, there are more 
than five hundred feet of shelves rilled with 

61 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

tightly packed books, which have been carefully 
selected from hundreds of tons of propaganda 
removed from German mails. 

Even a cursory examination of this library 
makes it evident that German propagandists try 
to be all things to all men, and seek to convert to 
the uses of the Fatherland everyone, from the 
Pope to the Sheik ul Islam. In Great Britain 
they devote their energies to the encouragement 
of conscientious objectors; in Ireland, to the 
financing and fomenting of revolution; in Ger- 
many, to breeding hatred of England and Amer- 
ica; in America, to the encouragement of emo- 
tional pacifism; in Turkey, to the announcement 
of Germany's military invincibility and of the 
Kaiser's sympathy with Mohammedanism; in 
Austria-Hungary, to fostering ideas of insepa- 
rable brotherhood in arms between the soldiers of 
Austria and Germany; in Holland and Scandi- 
navia, to terrifying details of the fate of small 
nations which, like Belgium, Serbia and Ru- 
mania, have dared to cross Germany's path. 

The various productions of German propa- 
ganda are self-contradictory and were never in- 
tended to be collected together in one place. 
Books encouraging pacifism and non-resistance, 

62 



The British Postal Censorship 

and intended as a basis for propaganda in Amer- 
ica, stand cheek by jowl with others for German 
consumption, preaching the doctrine of "Might is 
Right!" Books encouraging a Mohammedan 
Holy War against Christians stand side by side 
with others that praise the good old German 
God, who will smite, hip and thigh, the unchris- 
tian enemies of the Fatherland. 

Most of the more recent propaganda was not 
intended for general distribution, but merely to 
serve as a text for German agents living in for- 
eign countries, who make native citizens their 
dupes, in order to secure the publication in the 
local press of the ideas outlined in the texts sent 
out by Germany. 

The objects and purposes of all this German 
propaganda seem to group themselves into four 
classes : 

It calls attention to German methods of organ- 
ization and exaggerates the importance of Ger- 
many's military successes, thereby discouraging 
enemies and impressing upon neutrals, like Den- 
mark, Holland, Switzerland and America, the 
danger to be incurred by all who interfere with 
Germany's aims. 

It aims to promote mutual mistrust among the 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

Allies, and by subtle touches insinuates that dis- 
sension already exists among them, in the hope of 
weakening the Entente and modifying the atti- 
tude of neutrals toward the ultimate outcome of 
the war. 

It stimulates martial spirit in the Central Em- 
pires and encourages pacifism in all neutral and 
allied countries, in order to bring the present war 
to a close on the basis of a German victory, and 
relatively to weaken foreign countries as a prepa- 
ration for Germany's future wars. 

It obscures Germany's part in starting the war, 
and seeks to minimize the effect produced in 
America and Spain by the violation of Belgium, 
the sinking of the Lusitania, the Holy War 
against Armenian Christians, and the recent slave 
raids in Belgium and France. 

In the cellar of the censorship is one depart- 
ment which is of more interest to Americans than 
any of the others — that in which all condemned 
letters are filed away. Letters are never de- 
stroyed by the censorship, but are detained for pe- 
riods of time varying from one week to the dura- 
tion of the war, according to the value which the 
information they contain might be to Germany. 

64 



The British Postal Censorship 

Thousands upon thousands of letters are there 
carefully docketed and filed ; so that any letter, or 
any series of letters, or all the letters written by 
one man, or even all letters dealing with any 
particular subject, may be located in a few min- 
utes. 

An American who examines these files is 
aghast at what he thereby learns of German 
propaganda in his own country. Its extent and 
efficiency almost surpass comprehension. Thou- 
sands of letters reiterate and prove, beyond the 
shadow of a doubt, the existence of a widespread 
system of criminal conspiracies organized by 
Count Bernstorff, and so thoroughly established 
that it will remain behind him unimpaired, even if 
he is finally sent about his business. These plots 
are promoted not only by Germans but by Amer- 
ican citizens of German extraction, and even by 
recreants of native stock. 

Copies of all the most important of these let- 
ters have been forwarded by the Censorship, 
through the American Embassy, to the State 
Department in Washington; so that our Gov- 
ernment has at least been allowed ample time to 
take adequate precautions. 



65 



IV 



"ON DUTY IN LONDON" 



January 19th. At last the question of my 
commission is definitely settled. I am to be 
made an officer in the Royal Naval Division. 
There is no British organization to which I would 
rather belong, for it has performed creditably as 
much hard fighting as any infantry division in 
the war, having been present at the siege and fall 
of Antwerp in 1914, at the Dardanelles campaign 
in 1915, and at the Battle of the Somme during 
the summer of 1916, where in the autumn it 
crowned its record by the brilliant capture of 
Beaucourt. 

In its valiant history, it has several times 
sustained frightful losses, not only without giv- 
ing way but without at all losing its aggressive 
spirit or the willingness to use the bayonet. 

The division was assembled early in the war, 
and was at first largely composed of marines and 
sailors who were, for the moment, not needed in 

66 



cc On Duty in London" 

the fleet or for harbor defence. Subsequently it 
became something of a Foreign Legion and was 
joined by men from all parts of the Empire who, 
although they hurried to England to take part 
in the great war, had no previous military affilia- 
tion. Many and curious were the contrasts be- 
tween the men who eventually joined its ranks. 

Its commander, Major General Freyberg, 
V. C, D. S. O., the youngest divisional com- 
mander in the British armies, came from South 
Africa to join it as a lieutenant late in 1914, and 
gradually rose to his present rank in the almost 
continual hard fighting which the division sus- 
tained. 

Although few of the present officers in the 
Naval Division have served on board a battleship, 
and fewer still were ever naval officers, they were, 
for precedent's sake and because of the honorable 
history of the division, still commissioned with 
Naval titles as members of the Royal Navy Vol- 
unteer Reserve. 

Its company commander is commissioned a 
senior lieutenant in the R. N. V. R. and his di- 
rect superior, instead of being commissioned a 
major, is a lieutenant-commander R. N. V. R. 
This proceeding is still the custom, in spite of the 

67 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

facts that the officers of the division wear khaki, 
bear army insignia of rank, and are frequently 
called by the military titles of captain or major. 

I do not yet know to which brigade and bat- 
talion of the Division I am to be assigned, but 
my commission as lieutenant-commander is to 
be officially gazetted in a week or more. 

As a necessary preliminary to accepting this 
commission, I have forwarded to Washington my 
resignation as Major in the Officers' Reserve 
Corps, United States Army. 

London, January 20th. To-morrow I am to 
go down into Buckinghamshire to Chequers 
Court to visit Colonel Sir Arthur Lee, M. P., 
K. C. B., and Lady Lee, who was Miss Moore of 
New York. Their famous old country house an- 
tedates Elizabethan times. 

Chequers 3 Court, Sunday, January 21st. My 
visit to Chequers' Court is interesting beyond 
words. 

I took the morning train from the Marylebone 
Station and reached Princes Bisborough on the 
Great Central Railway about noon. A man- 
servant met me there with a motor-car and 

68 



"On Duty in London" 

whisked me up through the Chiltern Hills to Sir 
Arthur's home, which is several miles from the 
railroad. 

On the way we passed a hillside upon which a 
big cross had been cut deep into the chalk, some- 
time during the ninth or tenth century, to com- 
memorate a victory against the invading Danes. 
It has been kept fresh by each succeeding genera- 
tion of Englishmen, for the Anglo-Saxon king 
of that date inserted into the title-deed of the 
land a clause imposing on successive owners the 
obligation of keeping this emblem fresh and un- 
incroached upon by grass and trees. 

The cross and its significance made me ap- 
preciate what an historic part of England I was 
enjoying the privilege of visiting. 

Chequers' Court is situated on the lower slopes 
of one of the largest of the Chilterns, and stands 
in the center of an estate several thousand acres 
in extent; and is surrounded and tied together 
by a beautifully arranged set of terraces, gar- 
dens, walks and tree-groups. 

Rolling parks, dotted with grazing sheep, and 
broken by groups of pine trees, stretch away 
from it in all directions. 

It takes its name from its earliest recorded 
69 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

owner, Elias de Chequers — or Chekers as he 
spelled it — who was an official of the king's ex- 
chequer in eleven hundred and something. 

It seems that in olden times accounts were 
made up with the aid of a chequer board, used in 
much the same manner in which the Chinese of 
to-day employ an abacus; and that the ancient 
word exchecker was synonymous with the mod- 
ern word checkers, the checker board being used 
both as an abacus and a gaming board. 

In the time of this particular official of the 
king's exchequer, surnames were just beginning 
to come into fashion in England, and Elias, 
therefore, added de Chequers to his name, at the 
same time choosing a blue and white checker- 
board as the principal feature of his coat of arms. 

In the long gallery at Chequers Court there 
is a window of many panes, in which are recorded 
in stained glass the various coats -of -arms of all 
the different owners from Elias de Chequers to 
Sir Arthur Lee. In quarterings these arms the 
blue and white checker-board of Elias survived 
for four centuries, down to the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth. 

The south facade of the present house was 
built about 1490 and has not been altered since 

70 



"On Duty in "London" 

1565 when its owner, William Hawtrey, re- 
modelled it from its early Tudor style into the 
Elizabethan, which was at that time the vogue. 

The whole house is possessed of a wonderful 
unity, for the several additions made in the 16th, 
18th and 19th centuries are in perfect keeping 
with the older parts. 

The brick of which the north facade is con- 
structed has been in place since a time antedating 
the discovery of America, and has weathered to 
an exquisite glowing old rose color. 

The furniture is quite as old as the house, and 
so are many of the manuscripts, paintings and 
books. 

One old manuscript, compiled during the 
16th century, was exceedingly interesting be- 
cause of the sidelights it gave upon the mores of 
that time. It was a compilation of all the med- 
ical receipts used among the gentry of the coun- 
tryside, each with the name of the inventor ap- 
pended as a sort of criterion of value. 

The lands of the estate have a known history 
which far antedates the life of the present build- 
ing, for other dwellings preceded it upon the 
same site at least since the time of Cymbalene, 
the ancient king of Britain, whose son Carac- 

71 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

tacus, born about the year a. d., was that same 
Caractacus who for a long time successfully re- 
sisted the Romans when they invaded his coun- 
try, but who was eventually taken as a prisoner 
to Rome during the rule of the Emperor 
Claudius. 

Traces of Caractacus' original stronghold are 
still to be seen on a little hill a few hundred yards 
west of the present house, and the two villages in 
the neighborhood from which Cymbalene took 
his name are still known as Great Kimble and 
Little Kimble. 

In the south-west corner of the estate is the 
site of a Roman village, built by the conquerors 
of Caractacus, and a penny of Marcus Aurelius' 
was recently picked up on this spot. 

From 1565 to 1567, Lady Mary Grey, grand- 
daughter of Henry VII and sister of Lady Jane 
Grey, was, by order of Queen Elizabeth, im- 
prisoned in Chequers Court, because she had, 
without the Queen's consent, secretly married the 
Sergeant Porter of the Palace gate. She re- 
mained in Chequers Court under the guardian- 
ship of William Hawtrey until after the death of 
her husband. 

About 1720 the house belonged to John Rus- 
72 



"On Duty in London" 

sell, grandson of Oliver Cromwell, whose 
mother, a daughter of "Old Ironsides," had mar- 
ried the heir to Chequers Court. His tenancy 
may still be traced by the presence in the house 
of Cromwell's sword and watch; also of several 
miniatures and portraits of Cromwell and of 
other members of his family. 

About the middle nineteenth century the 
estate temporarily lost much of its ancient pres- 
tige and beauty, for at this epoch the original 
brick and stone of the house was overlaid with 
stucco in an attempt to convert it into early Vic- 
torian. 

During the tenancy of Sir Arthur and Lady 
Lee, however, this was removed and the house 
has regained to the full not only its beauty but 
its prestige; within its boundaries the leaders of 
men of the present generation now often walk 
about in the footsteps of the great chieftains of 
ten and twenty centuries ago. 

In a single week in 1910 as remarkable a 
collection of notable guests were sheltered by its 
roof, as one is ever likely to meet in a private resi- 
dence. Among their number were Field Mar- 
shal Earl Roberts, Arthur J. Balfour, John 
Burns, Field Marshal Earl Kitchener, Ex- 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

President Roosevelt, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, 
Alfred Lyttleton and Captain Scott, the Ant- 
arctic explorer. 



January 23rd, At a small private luncheon 
given to-day by Mr. Edward Bell, Secretary of 
the American Embassy, I met Admiral W. R. 
Hall, C.B., Director of the Naval Intelligence 
Division, and Colonel John Buchan, who is head 
of the Department, under a War Cabinet, which 
deals with publicity and political intelligence. 
The latter is the same John Buchan who was, be- 
fore the war began, already famous as an author. 
These two officials are responsible for the collec- 
tion and distribution of all information useful to 
the Admiralty and the Foreign Office respec- 
tively. 

They are extraordinarily interesting men, 
whose successful work and ceaseless energy I have 
already heard much praised since my arrival in 
England. Each of them has the reputation of 
being a ruthless cutter of red tape, even when it 
exists by the Gordian knot. 

They are men who, while at present not so 
widely known to the general public as are many 

74 



"On Duty in London" 

of the titled figureheads, yet in reality constitute 
with a few other equally talented men a group of 
professional experts; who, although they have 
only recently come into their present power, daily 
accomplish more essentially practical things con- 
tributory to the winning of the war than anyone 
else in the Empire, save only "the big three" — 
Lloyd George, Northcliffe and Haig. 

All the members of this group cannot be enu- 
merated and described here, but to mention a 
few: there are Lieutenant General Sir John 
Cowans, the Quartermaster General, who has 
been responsible for the colossal task of equipping 
the new armies; Major General Sir George Mac- 
donogh, the Director of Military Intelligence; 
and Lord Robert Cecil, the Minister of Blockade. 

Hall and Buchan have a high regard for each 
other, and in addition possess a keen and kindred 
sense of humor. The Admiral has been a sailor 
all his life, and belongs to the best type of British 
naval officer. He is of an intensely practical 
turn of mind and enjoys life and "the game" im- 
mensely. 

At lunch Admiral Hall talked of the wonder- 
ful capacity of the British sailor for meeting sud- 
den unforeseen emergencies, and illustrated his 

75 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

point with many apt stories of which the follow- 
ing is so typical that it seems worth repeating. 

He said that some years ago, — it is not neces- 
sary to be too definite, — a number of British war- 
ships were anchored in the harbor of Hong Kong. 
One evening, two young sailormen from one of 
the vessels landed at the old Blue Pier, which has 
since been destroyed, and took 'rickshaws up the 
long winding road to the famous pavilion on the 
hill, where they partook of an excellent dinner. 

When they had finished their coffee and cigars, 
and were preparing to return to the Pier, a 
'rickshaw race down the hill for a guinea a side 
was suggested. " • 

No sooner said than done and, the "steeds" 
being quite willing, the two conveyances set sail 
down the lonely hill at full speed through the 
darkness. For a time the race was even, but 
about midway one 'rickshaw began to lose ground, 
and had eventually dropped a considerable dis- 
tance behind, when suddenly the Chinaman stum- 
bled and falling heavily, fractured his skull and 
rolled over dead, capsizing the 'rickshaw and its 
occupants. 

The young sailor was, to say the least, in a 
very awkward predicament, alone on the hill with 

76 



"On Duty in London" 

a dead Chinaman, who would have to be ex- 
plained not only to Civil authorities, but what 
was still worse to his commanding officer. 

Anxious to make the best of a bad business, 
he pondered over his dilemma and after some 
seconds arrived at the following solution. 

He righted the 'rickshaw, placed the dead 
Chinaman therein, put himself into the shafts, 
and started down the hill again at full speed on 
the trail of his comrade. Arriving at the foot of 
the hill he continued his mad career out onto the 
pier and traversing its entire length, he plunged 
off the far end into thirty feet of water, — 'rick- 
shaw, Chinaman and all. 

On coming to the surface, he cried loudly for 
help. The men who rushed to his assistance 
eventually fished out both the Chinaman and the 
sailor. The Chinaman was unconscious, but it 
was decided that in falling off the pier he must 
have struck his head against a pile or against the 
'rickshaw itself, for all efforts at resuscitation 
failed. 

For the sake of brevity all important offices and 
officers connected with the war are known by 
their initials. Thus the Naval Intelligence Divi- 

77 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

sion is never called anything but "I. D." and its 
chief, the Director of the Intelligence Division, is 
called, even to his face, "the D. I. D." The Pos- 
tal Censorship is always referred to as "M. I. 9" 
( Military Intelligence Department Nine ) . Con- 
tre espionage is "M. I. 5," etc., etc. 

January 26th. Admiral Hall sent for me to- 
day and out of a perfectly clear sky informed 
me that I was not to join the Naval Division at 
present but that he was having me made a mem- 
ber of his Naval Intelligence Staff. He added 
that he had important work for me to begin at 
once. 

To say that I was astonished would be to put 
the case altogether too mildly ; I could only reply 
stupidly that I was totally ignorant of naval mat- 
ters. 

The Admiral smiled indulgently and said with 
gentle sarcasm, that it was very far from his in- 
tention to make me commander of a battleship, 
that the war was being fought by ways and means 
contrary to all precedents, and that I would soon 
get used to seeming incongruities. 

"Sir Eric Geddes," he continued, "who before 
the war was general manager of the North East- 

78 



"On Duty in London" 

ern Railway, is now a Major General of the 
Army and a Vice Admiral of the Navy, both at 
once, and humorists declare that there is nothing 
left for him to covet except to become an Arch- 
bishop." 

Entirely misunderstanding my astonishment 
and apparently thinking it was disappointment at 
not immediately joining the Naval Division, he 
said more severely : — 

"Now that you have joined our forces, you 
will, of course, obey all orders. It has been de- 
cided that for the moment at least, you can be of 
more use to me than to the Royal Naval Division. 

"I understand that you are sometimes an au- 
thor and that you have ambitions to compile a 
pro-British book written from the standpoint of 
an American serving in our forces. 

"The new government having renounced the 
old government's policy of reticence, I consider it 
important that you be offered every opportunity 
to publish such a book. 

"As you will not be allowed to talk about the 
work you do for me, I intend eventually to find 
something about which you will be permitted to 
write. 

"Sooner or later, when I am through with you, 
79 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

I shall send you to the Front, with your Division 
or in some other capacity, and if righting is what 
you desire, I promise you that you shall have all 
you can stomach." 1 

January 27th. I heard this morning the story 
of a British brigade in the recent Somme offen- 
sive, a story told by an officer who had partici- 
pated. He of course said nothing which was not 
already public property, but still a first-hand ac- 
count was most interesting. 

His brigade led the attack. A British brigade 
equals four thousand men. Two thousand four 
hundred men went "over the top" to begin with, 
while one thousand six hundred were held in 
reserve. One thousand, eight hundred were 
"down" almost at once. The other six hundred 
reached their objective and succeeded in holding 
it for twenty-four hours, during which the 
brigade commander gradually fed in his reserves. 

When the brigade was relieved at the end of 

i Although at a later date the author was temporarily attached 
to the G. H. Q. Intelligence in France, his status there was not of 
a permanent army intelligence officer. He never permanently 
relinquished his appointment under Admiral Hall, which he still 
held when this book went to press. It is from the latter con- 
nection that the book takes its title. 

80 



"On Duty in London 33 

that time, four hundred unwounded men were all 
their general could collect. So much for the tip 
of the wedge ! 



The St. James's Club is a great comfort to 
me — I really do not see how I could have existed 
comfortably without it during my first weeks in 
London, when I had nothing to do. 

The Club is a fascinating old place made up 
of buildings and additions thrown together in a 
most extraordinarily haphazard manner. After 
several weeks, I still discover new rooms in unsus- 
pected places. 

One arrives at the main library by going up the 
back stairs, after first passing through the same 
swinging door from which the servants emerge 
when summoned to bring whiskey-and-sodas. I 
am sitting in this room as I write. It is in a 
wing isolated from the rest of the house. It has 
a subdued atmosphere and a little sign on the 
mantel says "Silence." Few people come to this 
part of the building, and I often have the place 
all to myself. 

A cheerful open fire is burning on the hearth 
and there are numerous big, soft armchairs into 

81 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

which one sinks indefinitely; each chair has be- 
hind it a convenient drop-light, and all these 
lights are shaded so that none of them shine into a 
reader's eyes; writing tables are placed in the 
corners, each supplied with a copious assortment 
of stationery ; it is at one of these desks that I am 
at present comfortably seated. 

Long book-cases line the wall, and the great 
center table is covered with the latest books. The 
room is exactly square — about twenty-five feet 
on a side. Along one end are four great win- 
dows extending from panelling to cornice, and 
on the opposite side two more. 

An interesting incident occurred at a dinner 
to-night. Among the guests was an American 
and his wife, who showed the greatest interest 
and curiosity in all matters pertaining to the 
war. Although apparently perfectly innocent 
and ingenuous, this curiosity was not always well- 
timed and discreet. 

A British naval officer of high rank was also 
at the table. The Americans persistently ques- 
tioned him about the enormous new battleships 
which England has turned out since the war 
began. 



"On Duty in London" 

Any one less well-bred and at the same time 
less worldly-wise than this officer would probably 
have met the questions with a rebuff, for it ought 
to be evident to even the dullest brain that highly- 
placed naval officers cannot at random divulge 
the newest developments of British naval policy. 

The Englishman, however, without the slight- 
est hesitation, replied most politely: "Oh, yes, 
we have just turned out some really marvellous 
ships. The other day one of them was making 
her trial run off the Irish coast, and for protec- 
tion against submarines was convoyed by three 
of our newest and fastest destroyers, which are 
capable of making thirty-six knots an hour in 
good weather. The day proved an ideal one for 
a record run. Not only the constructors but also 
the representatives of the Admiralty were san- 
guine of great results, and even their wildest ex- 
pectations were exceeded. 

"The new ship set out at top speed with a de- 
stroyer on either bow, and a third one bringing 
up the rear. After she had been running for 
about half an hour, her commander noticed that 
the destroyers had all three dropped astern, 
whereupon he became somewhat irate and sig- 
nalled that he desired to be properly convoyed 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

and did not wish the destroyers to fall so far be- 
hind. 

"The commander of the flotilla signalled back 
e We are doing thirty-six knots, sir, and cannot 
go faster/ " 

This preposterous story was related with such 
courtesy and with such apparent sincerity that 
it was accepted as gospel truth by the two inquis- 
itive Yankees, who were evidently greatly flat- 
tered by the officer's confiding to them such im- 
portant secrets. During the next week they will 
doubtless with bated breath repeat his informa- 
tion "in confidence" to scores of people. 

January 29th, I was in the big office of the 
D. I. D. for more than an hour this afternoon. 
Several times, during that time, Generals or Ad- 
mirals came in to confer with him, and when this 
occurred I withdrew across the room to a big 
window looking out upon the Horse Guards Pa- 
rade. 

Here within the compass of a single glance one 
beheld the heart of the great British Empire, for 
the Horse Guards Parade lies in the very midst 
of its executive center. 

As one looked out of that Admiralty window, 
84 



"On Duty in London" 

one saw to the left over the Horse Guards' gate 
the roof of the War Office, while straight in front, 
across the bare brown earth of the parade ground, 
lay the Foreign Office and the Treasury, and be- 
hind them Big Ben and the towers of the Houses 
of Parliament, while in the foreground, nestling 
down among them all, was the homely drab house 
at 10 Downing Street, framed by trees and its 
garden wall. 

Thousands of important officials criss-cross 
their way over the parade ground each day. 
Here one sees, sooner or later, all the important 
leaders of the Empire. This little area has been 
the center of their activities for many genera- 
tions in the past. It is alive with British tradi- 
tions. 

Even as I looked, General Sir William Rob- 
ertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 
walked across the Parade between two red- 
tabbed officers, who were talking to him intently 
and respectfully. 



85 



LIVERPOOL TO LONDON 

February 14th. I recently had occasion to 
travel from London to Liverpool and back. It 
was on a Sunday evening when, having finished 
my business, I entered the Liverpool station of 
the London and North Western Railway to take 
the evening train back to town. 

Amid the crowd, which moved backwards and 
forwards along the broad platforms between the 
lines of railway carriages, were many men in 
khaki. 

Nowadays the evening train from Liverpool 
to London bears a far deeper significance than 
merely being a means of transit from England's 
greatest seaport to the British capital. It not 
only carries its usual passengers to London-town, 
but constitutes the first stage of the journey to 
the battle-fronts beyond in France and Flanders. 
This explains the presence upon the platforms of 
so many men in uniform. They have recovered 

86 



Liverpool to London 

from grievous wounds, or have completed all too 
quickly a hard-won furlough, and are now return- 
ing to the war. 

Their women-folk have come with them to the 
train, to share the last precious moments before 
their soldiers are borne away to a doubtful fate. 

The faces of these women wear quiet, cour- 
ageous, haunting smiles. The melodramatic is 
conspicuous by its absence. Gone are the empty 
platitudes and heroisms which, in the England 
of before the war, were commonly ascribed to 
such partings. No beautiful young wife is seen 
to "blot herself with a gesture of utter abandon- 
ment in the arms of her soldier husband." For 
in the England of 1917 selfishness has given way 
to humble and self-sacrificing service for the Na- 
tion. Publicly to give expression to purely per- 
sonal grief or joy is now by all classes considered 
bad form. Neither tears nor hilarious mirth are 
any longer exhibited before the general gaze. 

As I watch the crowd upon the platform a 
private of the Liverpool Scottish, having safely 
installed his rifle and other accoutrements in a 
third-class compartment, is now walking slowly 
up and down the platform between two women. 
Each has an arm through one of his. The 

m 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

woman upon his right is a bent creature of fifty, 
evidently prematurely aged by a lifetime of child- 
bearing and hard work; the one upon his left is 
a bloused, red-cheeked Lancashire lassie. 

In a most outrageous dock-yards dialect the 
soldier-boy is recounting the story of some an- 
cient practical joke. His companions are inat- 
tentive to his words, although they make a pre- 
tence of listening, the homely little history makes 
the parting easier for all three, and such is its only 
purpose. 

I am placed by the train-guard in a first-class 
compartment. A young officer and his mother 
are already quietly sitting there opposite each 
other, and present to the crowd an impersonal 
aspect of calm dignity. The son is a fine speci- 
men, a man-child to be proud of. His calm 
strong face is lighted by the clearest of blue eyes. 
His mother has come with her son as far as she 
may, — to this last barrier which shuts her behind 
and leaves her to hope, to pray and patiently to 
wait. 

The guard announces the moment of depart- 
ure. I look discreetly out of the window for a 
long minute. When I turn round again the 
mother has disappeared. 

88 



Liverpool to London 

As the train begins slowly to move a young 
woman, who had been bidding farewell to 
friends on the platform, boards the carriage and 
enters our compartment. She wears the in- 
signia of an ambulance brigade, and is dressed 
in serviceable dark clothes of inexpensive cut. 
Her hat is of unadorned black felt. It is evi- 
dent that she is of gentle birth and that she was 
much "protected" before the war. Her true age 
is probably not far from twenty-five, yet her 
face expresses the character of a woman of thirty. 

I covertly study my two companions as they 
sit facing me in opposite corners of the com- 
partment. I find them strikingly similar in de- 
portment; serious and thoughtful without being 
solemn; philosophical with a faint trace of dig- 
nified sadness. I observe that each wears a 
broad band of black crepe around the left arm. 

Not a word is spoken by any one of us during 
the four hours of our journey to London. My 
fellow travellers do not read novels or news- 
papers, nor do they fidget about. After me- 
thodically pulling down the window-blinds in ac- 
cordance with the regulations of the "Defence 
of the Realm Act" intended as a protection 
against enemy air-craft, they lay their heads 

89 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

upon their arms and go methodically to sleep, as 
if they regard sleep as a precious commodity of 
which they cannot store up too much against a 
coming time of need. 

I am left alone to ponder the manifestations 
which the evening has brought forth, which are 
all a part of that new and different psychol- 
ogy that is sensed the very instant one sets 
foot upon the soil of a country at war, and which 
cuts deeper and deeper into the consciousness 
with each day that passes. 

It differs as markedly from the psychology of 
a nation at peace as the psychology of a wolf 
differs from that of a house dog. To each of the 
two states of mind, truths are revealed which are 
entirely hidden or incomprehensible to the other. 

The members of a Nation-at-Peace believe in 
the sacredness of human life and in the value and 
rights of the individual, while their neighbours - 
at -war know all too well that the perpetuation 
of higher races and of their ideals are the only 
matters of true moment, and that individual life 
is the cheapest or at most the least precious of 
all earthly things. 

War psychology lies very near to fundamental 
truths. It is not to be tempted by theoretical ex- 

90 



Liverpool to London 

cesses, for war sets a terrible premium upon fit- 
ness and practicability. Nothing is so surely a 
destroyer of those two extremes of selfishness; 
the Plutocracy which seizes more than it can con- 
structively employ, and the particular form of 
Socialism which demands an equal reward for 
unequal efforts and abilities. 

In war-time the individual develops rapidly, 
vividly and largely. Measured by psychological 
milestones he often, in a single year, lives out a 
mental and moral life-time. Months are suffi- 
cient to work changes in his soul which years of 
peace-time could not have brought to pass. 

The emotional capacity of the individual is 
markedly increased in depth and intensity. Its 
most striking manifestations are the subordina- 
tion of self and of selfish motives and a belief that 
idealism in general, and the honour and aspira- 
tions of the Nation in particular, are precious 
above all price. In peace-time the average man 
thinks in terms of self, in former wars he 
learned to think as a unit of the nation, but 
in this greatest of all wars the individual par- 
ticipant, civil or military, is learning to think 
in terms of general humanity — in world-terms, 
and this generation is thereby blessed as no other 

91 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

by a universal outlook. Every nation involved is 
weighing itself in the balance, measuring itself, 
not by national but international standards. 

There are moments of exaltation when one 
finds oneself agreeing with the detestable 
Nietzsche that war is a great moral rejuvenator, 
both for the nation and for the individual. 

Many people in England are coming to believe 
this. Some Englishmen already go so far as to 
say that this present war is for Britain the great- 
est blessing in all her history. I heard one gen- 
tleman, who had lost an only son, say fervently 
that the so-called Anglo-Saxon race and its ideals 
had, unsuspected by itself, been withering away, 
but that it had been awakened in time by the dis- 
asters of this war and would eventually be saved 
through the "new democracy" of the British 
Empire. 



VI 

LLOYD GEORGE 

February 15th. Wellington once said that 
Napoleon's presence on the field of battle was, 
for the French army, equivalent to a reinforce- 
ment of forty thousand men, and Wellington 
was certainly not a man to lavish undeserved 
praise upon an enemy. 

When he made this extraordinary statement, 
the armies of Europe were at a maximum num- 
bered in hundreds of thousands only, instead of 
by millions as in the present war. It indicates 
how tremendously important, even in those days 
of small armies, was the effect of a single power- 
ful personality. 

To-day, in this unprecedented World's War, 
the opportunity for individual leaders to affect 
favorably or unfavorably the cause they repre- 
sent is greater than ever, according as they prove 
adequate or inadequate to the problems that con- 
front them. 

93 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

It is easily conceivable that in the present con- 
flict a single dominating personality of the calibre 
of the Prince of Orange, of Lincoln, or of Fred- 
erick the Great, would be of more value to any 
one of the allied nations than a million soldiers, 
might, in fact, save millions of lives or, more im- 
portant still, perpetuate the life and ideals of the 
nation itself. 

In this great conflict of ideals, the lives of the 
average human individuals are poured away by 
countless thousands, while the conflict is, to a pre- 
viously unequalled degree, directed and deter- 
mined by a relatively small number of individual 
personalities. Of rulers, statesmen, soldiers, ar- 
tists, moralists and writers, perhaps not more 
than forty men all told, among thirty million com- 
batants, have emerged from the obscurity of the 
masses. 

Some of these like Raemaekers, Bernstorff, 
Hankey and Forain have had greatness thrust 
upon them by accidental circumstances, not as 
combatants but as molders of public opinion or 
as mediums of international sympathy. Some, 
like the Kaiser, owe their power largely to the 
accident of their birth. Others, like Northcliffe, 
Foch, Lloyd George, Ribot, Briand, Smuts, Rob- 

94 



Lloyd George 

ertson, Beatty 5 Hindenburg, Mackenson and Fal- 
kenhayn are great by nature and have the look of 
eagles in their eyes. Some like Joffre, Foch and 
French have already played a noble part in the 
early days of the conflict, but under new and 
more strenuous conditions have had to give place 
to younger, fresher men as yet unbroken by the 
gruelling pace. 

Some like Nicholas, Asquith, Von Moltke and 
Jellicoe have, justly or unjustly, been held re- 
sponsible for great disasters. Others like Kit- 
chener, Gallieni and Roberts have died since the 
war began, leaving behind them the memory of 
their great patriotic service, still to act the part 
of inspiration and leadership to their successors. 
Some like Nietzsche, Treitschke, Deroulede, Bis- 
marck, Gambetta and Clauswitz, long since dead, 
yet still hold their place in the guidance of mil- 
lions of their own nations. 

Among thirty million combatants now fight- 
ing in Europe, there are probably not more than 
a score of men whose places could not be auto- 
matically filled, without slowing down the ma- 
chine. The responsibility of these few indis- 
pensables is enormous. A mistake or omission 
on the part of any one of them would, in the first 

95 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

place, jeopardize the lives of hundreds of thou- 
sands of average individuals, and ultimately per- 
haps threaten the existence and the ideals of na- 
tions and races vital to the progress of civiliza- 
tion. For one of these men the loss of a single 
night's sleep, with its resulting depression of vi- 
tality and weakened judgment, is a matter of 
great moment, alive with extensive possibilities of 
disaster; or a temporary illness, caused by the 
carelessness of a servant, might sign the death 
warrant of a thousand men. 

To succeed is the ultimate proof of greatness, 
but nowhere have the war's casualties and dis- 
creditments been greater than among the famous 
leaders. Of the premiers and leading generals 
who began the war, only Hindenburg still sur- 
vives. He alone has been continuously success- 
ful and unbeaten — he alone has lived up to the 
new conditions (phases) which have so kaleido- 
scopically succeeded one another. 

All the other great leaders have died, have 
been superseded at the end of a phase, or have 
utterly failed. Even the present living leaders 
are all still constantly on trial, and many of the 
dead like Nietzsche, Treitschke and Bismarck, 
when tested on the crucible of twentieth century 

96 




David Lloyd George. 



Lloyd George 

ideals, show steadily lessening reputations. 
They are seen to belong to a backward, not the 
forward looking group. 

In England, three great leaders, towering 
head and shoulders above all their countrymen, 
still survive, and as the war advances, it is seen 
that upon their shoulders the ultimate fate of the 
British Empire more and more depends. 

These three are Sir Douglas Haig, the com- 
mander-in-chief in the field, David Lloyd 
George, the new prime minister, and Lord 
Northcliffe, England's great publicist. 

Haig is a personality almost unknown within 
the British Isles, a reticent poised force aimed 
at the militant enemy across the channel, he in- 
tently faces the hostile armies; he faces them 
with his back turned towards the Empire itself, 
leaving the dynamic power of Lord Northcliffe 
and the constructive genius of Lloyd George to 
deal with economic and diplomatic problems at 
home. 

He plays a lone hand— Northcliffe and Lloyd 
George supplement each other, although these 
two are rather allies than friends. Each is too 
strongly individual to share the other's orbit, as 
friends must when working for the same purpose. 

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The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

Moreover, each puts Patriotism on a pedestal 
high above personal friendship. They are allies 
whose ideas as to ways and means to achieve the 
ends desired frequently coincide, and w T ho know 
how to compromise effectively when they differ. 

It is well known both to Lloyd George and 
to the Nation that Northcliffe was largely in- 
strumental in bringing about the fall of the 
Asquith "Wait and See" government and the 
subsequent elevation of Lloyd George to the 
premiership; it is equally well known that he 
acted in this matter neither from hope of per- 
sonal preferment nor from friendship, but simply 
and solely from unselfish, impersonal, intense 
patriotism; for Northcliffe serves no master but 
his country. 

In the present war the conquest of Belgium, 
the retreat from Mons and Charleroi, the Ant- 
werp fiasco, the Bulgarian intervention, the 
death of Serbia, the Dublin rebellion, the need- 
less and wasteful loss of two hundred thousand 
brave men at the Dardanelles and the ever in- 
creasing submarine campaign have for Great 
Britain formed a constantly rising crescendo of 
disaster, of which the final climax was the twin 
debacles of Boumania and Greece. 

98 



Lloyd George 

These two latest stinging blows have finally, 
and for the first time, enabled Northcliffe and 
the Radicals to bring to the comprehension of the 
populace the fact that the most titanic national 
task in all her history lies between Britain and 
ultimate victory. 

At last even the slow-moving, persistent Brit- 
ish intellect begins to realize that the Empire is 
committed to a desperate war, and that this 
greatest of world conflicts could not be won as 
long as the nation allowed itself to be held down 
by preconceived ideas, born of an old and ineffi- 
cient peacetime civilization. 

It will be a long time before preoccupied 
America gives due credence to the effectiveness 
with which the British, finally and thoroughly 
aroused, are at last beginning to organize for 
action, now that the long tottering Asquith 
government has finally been sent crashing to its 
fall by the combined efforts of the progressive 
elements in British public life under the leader- 
ship of such men as Lloyd George, Carson, Mil- 
ner and Derby. 

Here in England the fall of the Asquith 
ministry is hailed as the real beginning of 
Britain's war efficiency. 

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The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

In its place has been set up a government the 
like of which has never before existed in Great 
Britain. David Lloyd George, the taxer of the 
rich, the ruthless politician, the fighter, the icon- 
oclast, the pugnacious little Welshman formerly 
so detested by "the classes," has become premier 
with powers, implied or specified, which may 
well end by outrivaling those of a dictator of the 
old Roman Republic. He must, however, use 
his dictatorial power with marvelous courage and 
skill, if he is to fulfil expectations and conquer the 
diverse problems which confront him. 

Behind him, united and aroused, stands Britain 
and the four great colonial nations of Australia, 
New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. 

The Empire counts on Lloyd George to meet 
all recurrent problems with aggressive action, 
ruthless of precedent and custom, whether they 
be national or international. She, in short, ex- 
pects of him — miracles. 

Especially she looks for a new and vigorous 
foreign policy. The "London Spectator," com- 
menting upon his nomination, aptly expressed 
the public feeling on this particular subject when 
it said : — 

"In our foreign policy and in our handling of 
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Lloyd George 

neutral countries there must be no fidgeting, no 
pessimism, no standing on punctilios, no timidity. 
At the same time ... we ask no nation to make 
sacrifices which we are unwilling to make our- 
selves. If necessary, we must make ourselves 
terrible to the whole world, but terrible not from 
selfishness but from our determination to win a 
cause which is the cause of all free people." 

Great Britain expects Lloyd George to solve 
the Irish problem. She expects him eventually 
to establish prohibition, not only to promote 
human efficiency, but also to husband the grain 
which now goes into the manufacture of alco- 
holic drinks. She expects him so to increase the 
areas of land under cultivation that the Empire 
may be self-supporting and thus become inde- 
pendent of food supplies from neutral shippers. 

She counts on him to complete the organiza- 
tion of national unit buying and selling, so that 
whatever raw materials the Empire is forced to 
purchase from neutrals or from private individ- 
uals, may be obtained through a single agency 
and that all the products for sale may be dis- 
posed of in a similar manner. 

The Empire will then become the most colossal 
commercial trust in all history, maintained and 

101 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

protected by the most powerful navy in the 
world, and by an army of many million men. 

But finally and above all else, Great Britain 
expects of Lloyd George and his new govern- 
ment that they will establish such an efficient and 
far-reaching system of universal compulsory con- 
scription, already in operation throughout the 
German Empire, that each and every individual 
in the Kingdom will labor for the government at 
whatever work he is best fitted to do. So that 
there will no longer be found any one who is un- 
employed, whether he be a tramn or one of the 
idle rich. 

If necessary each individual will then receive 
for his work only an allotment of food, lodging, 
clothes and common privileges, so that, if need 
be, the British Empire can fight on indefinitely 
toward ultimate victory, thus becoming tem- 
porarily an extraordinary sort of Socialistic 
Empire. 

Such, in brief, are the achievements which 
Great Britain loudly demands of her new gov- 
ernment, while dimly perceiving the ways and 
means to accomplish them. If Lloyd George 
cannot achieve her purposes, England will cast 
him down as she cast down Asquith and will find 

102 



Lloyd George 

a man who is able to perform the miracles she 
demands, for things which seem extreme to the 
untroubled American mind are now common 
aspirations of the English people; and methods 
which a few years ago would have been con- 
sidered revolutionary are now accepted not only 
without protest but even with enthusiasm. 

Saturday. I am, within a few days, to make a 
verbal report to the Prime Minister and am 
making strenuous preparation in order to use the 
precious moments advantageously, carefully re- 
hearsing my facts and figures so that I may have 
them at my finger tips and may report as briefly 
as possible, for I fully realize that Mr. Lloyd 
George's time is to-day more valuable than that 
of any other man living. His every second is 
priceless to Great Britain. 

Monday. I lunched with Lord NorthclifTe 
to-day and mentioned the fact that I was to re- 
port to the Premier to-morrow at six o'clock, 
whereupon Lord NorthclifTe said that he him- 
self had an appointment with Lloyd George 
late in the afternoon and if I would meet him at 
the "Times" office, he would be very pleased to 

103 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

take me to 10 Downing Street and personally 
present me to the Premier. 

I look forward to seeing these two men to- 
gether, even for a moment, as a great privilege 
and an exceedingly interesting experience. 

Tuesday (the following day). My meeting 
with the Premier this afternoon was fixed for 
six o'clock. Lord NorthclifTe was to see him at 
5:30 and his secretary had telephoned me to be 
at the office of the London "Times" at 5:20. 

Lord NorthclifTe is noted for his punctuality 
and it was 5:20 to the second when he came 
downstairs this afternoon from his private of- 
fice and, picking me up in the ante-room, climbed 
into his famous green Rolls-Royce limousine. 

We proceeded along the Thames Embank- 
ment towards Downing Street, that historic lit- 
tle thoroughfare leading off from Whitehall at a 
point about half-way between the Treasury, the 
Admiralty and the War Office at one side; and 
the Houses of Parliament, the Home Office and 
the Foreign Office on the other. 

My curiosity prompted me to ask Lord North- 
clifTe "what sort of man is the Prime Minister." 

104 



Lloyd George 

He replied: "He is very simple and straight- 
forward; he wants to know what everybody 
thinks and hear what everybody has to say. He 
wishes to learn. He has an open mind." Then, 
turning his head and speaking with particular 
emphasis, "He is very shrewd and canny." 

A minute or two later I questioned him as to 
the advisability of making a certain statement to 
Mr. Lloyd George, and I thought his answer 
furnished a most illuminating side-light on the 
characters of both men when he said, "It makes 
no difference "what you say to him as long as 
you believe it to be the truth." 

The house at 10 Downing Street has been 
the combined residence and office of the British 
Premiers and the meeting place of the Cabinet 
for many decades. Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli, 
their predecessors and successors, have there 
followed one another, making history for Eng- 
land, each Premier living on the upper stories 
while having his office on the ground floor. 

It is a large house but has a small frontage on 
the street. One enters it through an utterly in- 
significant doorway. 

On arriving, we went directly down a long hall- 
105 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

way, turning to the left at the end and passing 
through an ante-room into the office of the Prime 
Minister's private secretary. Most of the spare 
space was here taken up by the secretary's big 
desk which, barrier-like, stood uncompromisingly 
across the very middle of the room. 

Along the walls were shelves containing piles 
of the red leather despatch boxes, which so often 
figure in novels dealing with international spies. 
They were so very ancient and battered that one 
concludes they must have been purchased by the 
first Prime Minister who inhabited No. 10 Down- 
ing Street and have been roughly used by every 
subsequent one. 

• Past Cabinets have met but once a week, while 
the present energetic War Cabinet generally 
meets twice a day. The Premier's secretary in- 
formed us that to-day's meeting had begun at 
11:30 in the morning. After sitting until 1:45 
the members had adjourned until 3 o'clock and 
then continued in session until after 5. They 
had indeed, at the time of our arrival, just left 
the house; the Prime Minister was still in the 
big Cabinet Room, into which Lord Northcliffe 
was taken immediately upon our arrival. He 

106 



Lloyd George 

remained with Lloyd George until about 6 o'clock 
when he came to the door to beckon me in and 
present me to the Premier. 

The Cabinet Room was long and high, with a 
large narrow table down the center, upon which 
the papers of the recent War Cabinet meeting 
were still strewn about. 

As I came in through a door in the corner, 
Lloyd George was standing in front of a fire- 
place on the right. Even in the great room 
he did not in the least seem a small man, as single 
individuals are apt to do in large apartments. 
He rather appeared the sort of man who looks 
particularly well in big rooms and feels thor- 
oughly at ease therein. 

Lord NorthclifTe briefly introduced me, and 
then excused himself to keep an engagement, 
leaving me to make my report. 

The Prime Minister greeted me with a look 
which reminded me of the child's story-book of 
the king who always put his visitor completely 
at his ease with a smiling look of welcome. "You 
are Major Wood," he said, with an intonation 
which implied that to be Major Wood was to 
be a very important person indeed. The com- 

107 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

plimentary tone of the greeting was a political 
mannerism which excited my admiration by the 
perfection of its execution. 

The great Premier sat down and motioned me 
to a chair facing him. I immediately felt that 
he was sincerely interested and would pay strict 
attention to what I had to submit for his con- 
sideration. There was, however, no feeling of 
surety that he would continue to be interested an 
instant after the conversation appeared the least 
bit unprofitable. 

His eyes, very gray and steady, looked straight 
at me as I talked, and gave me the impression of 
exceptional, keen shrewdness. 

I had rather pictured his smile as being the 
smile of a fighter — as that sort of a belligerent 
grin which maintains itself no matter how rough 
the going may be. But it was not that kind 
of a smile at all. It was, on the contrary, the 
friendly, very human smile of a man who liked 
people — people in general, — all people — in the 
same way that Theodore Roosevelt likes them, 
and has sincere interest in all their affairs and 
doings. Lloyd George and Roosevelt, sharing 
this trait in common, are strongly contrasted 
with many men in public life who are manifestly 

108 



Lloyd George 

so utterly and absolutely bored with ordinary 
people that it is only with the greatest effort they 
are able to conceal their impatience. 

After about twenty minutes, the Premier ter- 
minated the interview. 

February 19th. Half a dozen times during 
my first few weeks in London, total strangers 
have roughly and sneeringly accosted me in pub- 
lic, saying: "What sort of a funk-hole have you 
managed to crawl into?" or "Why are n't you in 
uniform, you big slacker?" And once, when my 
questioner persistently forced me to make some 
reply and my accent betrayed my American na- 
tionality, he snapped out, "Well, even if you 
do belong to a nation that is too proud to fight, 
you would at least fight yourself if you were n't 
a coward!" 

I assumed an air of proud superiority to these 
questioners and dubbed them unmannerly fools, 
who stupidly took it upon themselves to interfere 
with me without knowing all sides of the case. 

Nevertheless, when I finally put on the King's 
uniform for the first time, I found myself feeling 
like a new man, and carried my head higher than 
usual as I proudly walked down the street, al- 

109 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

beit I was now so much in keeping with my sur- 
roundings that no one any longer gave me so 
much as a glance. 

Colonel Sir Arthur Lee and his brother, Major 
Melville Lee of the General Staff, took me to 
luncheon to-day in order to present me to Colonel 
Ernest Swinton, C. B., D. S. O., B. E., who has 
to his credit two of the most noteworthy achieve- 
ments performed by any British officer since the 
beginning of the war. He is the "Eye-witness" 
who, during the early months of the struggle, 
wrote daily letters to the press which were pub- 
lished all over the world and are by far the most 
expressive records written about the days of 
the first and second Ypres, and the battle along 
the Yser. 

His indirect influence in recording for his 
country the deeds and heroisms of her soldiers 
was great, and his skill in keeping the army and 
the nation in close touch with each other was of in- 
calculable value. It is impossible to over-esti- 
mate the importance of the part he played in 
awaking England and making her realize the 
seriousness of the war upon which the nation 
had embarked. 

110 



Lloyd George 

In the second year of the war, he had a large 
share in the invention of the tanks which have 
constituted the most striking innovations in war- 
fare produced by the present conflict. He to a 
great extent designed them himself; also super- 
intending their construction and organizing their 
tactical employment on the front. 

Previous to the war, Colonel Swinton wrote 
short stories about the army under the nom de 
plume "Ole-Luk-Oie," in the hopes of bringing 
his country to a better understanding of her sol- 
diers and of giving her a knowledge of the press- 
ing need for more thorough military prepared- 
ness. 

His book "The Green Curve and other Short 
Stories" was read all over the Empire and pro- 
duced a tremendous effect. Next to Lord Rob- 
erts and Lord Northcliffe, he was probably Eng- 
land's most effective propagandist in favor of 
proper preparedness. 

The war has not yet brought him the honors 
and rewards which his great services justly merit. 
Like all soldiers who try to interpret their pro- 
fession to the people of the country they serve 
so loyally, he has occasionally made enemies 
among self-satisfied bureaucrats, and these have 

111 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

seen to it that amidst the showers of decorations 
and promotions which the war has produced, he 
has nearly always been passed by. 

A keen and devoted soldier with twenty-nine 
years' service to his credit, he was a Major in 
1906; yet in spite of the unsurpassed services he 
has rendered his country, he has, since the out- 
break, only been promoted from Lieutenant- 
Colonel to Colonel; whereas many less capable 
officers have, during the past three years, risen 
from Major to Major-General. 



112 




Louis Raemaekers. 



VII 

RAEMAEKERS 

(Pronounced Rahmahkers) 

"He has left a record which, mayhap, will last as long as the 
written record of the crime he illustrates. He draws evil with 
the rugged strength of Hogarth and in the same spirit of vehe- 
ment protest and anger. He draws sorrowing and suffering 
with all Hogarth's depth of sympathy. His pictures should be 
studied everywhere." — Roosevelt. 

Mr. Raemaekers, the famous Dutch cartoonist, 
took lunch with me to-day. His anti-German 
cartoons have travelled all over the civilized world 
to excoriate Prussianized Germany. So fright- 
ful are they that the Kaiser, after first unsuccess- 
fully trying to bribe Mr. Raemaekers to discon- 
tinue publishing them, has set a price on his head, 
to be paid to any one who murders him or entices 
him into Germany. 

I asked him about this, and with an air of self- 
consciousness and some hesitation, he said, "Yes 
— they have put a price on my head. I am sorry 
to say that it is only twelve thousand marks. 

113 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

I had thought it worth more than that to get 
me out of the way. Perhaps German efficiency 
realized that such a sum would seem fabulous to 
any criminal, while millions would be insufficient 
to tempt an honest man to become a professional 
murderer." 

Great men so seldom look the part they play 
that it is refreshing to find one who, like Mr. 
Raemaekers, looks what he is — a great artist. 
Although he is a rather shy little man with blond 
hair, pale blue eyes and a fine pointed Van Dyke 
beard, one would never mistake him for anything 
but a man of power. When one gets to know 
him, one perceives half -hidden below his mild and 
gentle manner, a certain splendid fanaticism, 
which every now and then flashes out intensely. 

He began his artistic studies in his native town 
of Lemberg, and afterwards went in progressive 
steps to art schools in Amsterdam, Brussels and 
Paris. He has travelled much and is an excel- 
lent linguist. Our conversation to-day was a 
pot-pourri of English, French and German, Mr. 
Raemaekers being inclined to discuss England, 
France and Germany each in its own language. 

Mr. Raemaekers is about to make a trip to 
America, and I asked him if he was not inter- 
na 



Raemaekers 

ested in the prospect of seeing that country for 
the first time. 

"I am very willing to go," he replied, "because 
I have been told that by so doing I shall in some 
small degree help the Great Cause. I know the 
Germans at first hand and may be able by means 
of my cartoons to make their true criminality 
a little clearer to the citizens of the United States. 

"Personally, I rather regret the voyage, be- 
cause," with a deprecatory smile, "although you 
might not suspect it, I am that unfashionable 
creature, a model husband, and regret being sep- 
arated from my wife, whom, however, I cannot at 
the present time, think of subjecting to the dan- 
ger involved in twice crossing the ocean." 

This tender care of one woman is probably the 
main root of his furious indignation at the mis- 
treatment of the Belgian women by the Teuton 
army, which has been revealed to the world by 
his celebrated cartoons. 

Mr. Raemaekers, when referring to the Ger- 
mans, invariably speaks of them as "beasts." It 
is "The beasts did this," or "The beasts think 
that." He uses the term quite as a matter of 
course and seems to expect his hearers without 
explanation to understand what he means. 

115 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

I laughed at this little idiosyncrasy, whereupon 
he said, "Well, perhaps I am a little unkind to the 
true beasts, of whom I am really fond." 

"The Dutch language," he continued, "con- 
tains no derogatory nickname for any foreigners 
except the Germans, who are called 'Moffen/ 
and generally 'die verdomde Moffen.' This 
word is equivalent in meaning to the French 
'Boche.' 

"When a Dutchman wishes to insult a fel- 
low countryman he speaks of him as a 'Moff.' 
Dutch seamen, for instance, who rather look 
down upon the Dutch farmers, sometimes refer 
to them as 'Moffen.' Whenever this is clone 
within hearing of a farmer, a fight is sure to 
result. 

"For twenty years I have clearly foreseen 
Germany's present attack on the world. For 
twenty years I have been drawing and publish- 
ing the same type of cartoons which have at- 
tracted so much notice since the war. 

"Seven years before the war began I was al- 
ready being called e e\n feind Deutschland's' by 
the German press. I cannot possibly express 
to you the unhappiness which I felt at being ab- 
solutely certain of the impending doom, and 

116 



Raemaekers 

at the same time being incapable of making peo- 
ple foresee and believe it. 

"My friends used to call me 'the man who 
can see ghosts even in sun-shine.' Yet it was 
I, not they, who really knew the beasts as all 
the world knows them to-day; I was born in the 
little town of Lemberg near Roermond, at a dis- 
tance of only a few miles from the German fron- 
tier, and have known the beasts all my life, not 
only in my own country but also in theirs, which 
I have visited many times. I might almost say 
that I have visited it every year of my life. 

"In Holland we have a saying that 'even the 
best German has stolen a horse.' I do not believe 
that there is any German who is not a pan-Ger- 
man. All of them suffer from this national and 
nation-wide megalomania. 

"The beasts seem to have in their brain one 
more kink or convolution than any one else, and 
this extra kink makes it impossible for them to 
see anything as ordinary mortals see it. 

"During the early months of the war, for in- 
stance, I used to receive letters from an important 
German professor, with whom I was acquainted, 
urging me to forego my attacks on Germany and 
to support kultur. He was so persistent in his 

117 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

appeals that I finally found it necessary to write 
him, that in order to sympathize with his state- 
ments it would be necessary for me to change 
my normal brain about and look at things from 
the point of view of a German brain. I assured 
him that I much preferred to remain an ordinary 
human being, and that as such his arguments only 
irritated me. 

"One of the most interesting manifestations of 
Prussianism in Germany is the utter paucity of 
all artistic talent, even of the most third rate 
quality. This has reached such a state that, to 
give a rather personal illustration, they have re- 
cently in Vienna and Berlin taken my drawings 
and changed them about in such a manner as ex- 
actly to invert their meaning, making them anti- 
Ally instead of anti-German. They have then 
distributed these impositions as the work of Mr. 
Raumacher, a neutral Dutch artist. 

"This sort of thing would be quite needless if 
Germany possessed a single cartoonist of the 
slightest artistic ability, and is an indication of 
the completeness with which Prussianism has 
suppressed all originality. 

"Although modern Prussianism has in date 
coincided with the greatest literary and artistic 

118 



Raemaekers 

epoch since the Renaissance and with the greatest 
inventive age of all history, no masterpiece of 
great literature, no one item of great art, nor any 
single invention of benefit to mankind has during 
that period come out of Germany. 

"During the age which saw the invention of the 
aeroplane, the automobile, the ocean liner, the 
submarine, the railroad, the telephone, the tele- 
graph, wireless telegraphy, and steel and concrete 
construction, the only invention which the beasts 
have perfected is the discredited Zeppelin. 

"During the generation which gave birth to 
Rudyard Kipling, Bernard Shaw, James Rarrie 
and Robert Louis Stevenson, Germany has only 
been able to produce a Sudermann. 

"During the age which gave to the world a 
Rodin, a Sargent and a Stanford White, Ger- 
many possesses only nameless artisans who con- 
struct grotesques and revel in arts nouveauoc." 

During our conversation I happened to men- 
tion that I had been a student in the Ecole des 
Beaux Arts at Paris. This seemed to interest 
Mr. Raemaekers very much and led our talk 
for a time into channels connected with French 
art and life in Paris. "Is n't it amusing," he 
said, "that in France even the cab-drivers con- 

119 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

sider their work an art, as soon becomes evident 
if one climbs into a fiacre and invites the cocher 
to point out the sights of the city. It is inexpli- 
cable that such a race of artists have in recent 
decades produced almost nothing of first impor- 
tance. Depuis la Directoire cest le vide, 

"I am convinced, however, that France is now 
on the threshold of another great artistic epoch 
of which Rodin is the forerunner." 

I reminded Mr. Raemaekers of the old saying 
that "every man of whatever nation can claim 
two countries, — his own and France." 

"Yes," he replied, with sudden vehemence, 
"that is true of every nation except Germany. 
France has always stood for some high ideal, and 
it has always been an ideal which one can under- 
stand and with which one can sympathize. 
Moreover, France has been unfailingly ready to 
make national sacrifices for her ideals. She has 
ever been willing to expend her toll of blood and 
money." 

A little later he said, "France is the country 
of liberty. In Paris, no matter what your na- 
tionality, you are permitted to be a human be- 
ing. In fact the French take it so much for 
granted that you are human, that you generally 

120 



Raemaekers 

become so when in France, even if it is not your 
true nature." 

The conversation touched upon the subject of 
cooking. 

"The French consider cooking, like cab-driv- 
ing, a fine art," said Mr. Raemaekers, "and in 
this particular I am rather inclined to agree with 
them. What is art in the last analysis but mak- 
ing attractive or beautiful the various incidents 
and necessities of life! When one marries one 
does not bolt down an ugly wife, but rather does 
one's best to obtain an attractive and beautiful 
mate. Why should it not be likewise with the 
meals which one must also confront three times 
a day all one's life ! 

"I hold that within the home, cooking should 
by all means be ranked as a fine art. I believe 
that a great deal of domestic unhappiness and 
much drunkenness could be prevented if it were 
invariably so regarded by the woman of the 
house. One must not forget that the working 
classes live in terms of fundamentals, and much 
of the pleasure which they are able to derive from 
life comes from eating the meals which they find 
so hard to earn. 

"At night when the working man comes home 
121 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

tired and hungry, if he finds that his wife has 
cooked and presented the humble evening meal 
au point du vue artiste, he finishes the day with 
a feeling of contented happiness. 

"If, on the other hand, a lot of fodder is, so to 
speak, thrown at him, he feels unsatisfied and dis- 
contented and desires to go out and have a few 
drinks." 



122 



VIII 

NORTHCLIFFE 

London, Friday, To-morrow I leave London 
to spend the week-end with Lord Northcliffe at 
his seaside home at Broadstairs, on the Kentish 
coast. This will make the ninth occasion upon 
which I have met him, and my impressions have 
now become crystallized enough to permit me to 
attempt a description of him during my stay at 
Broadstairs. 

I shall not feel it necessary to rehearse his great 
achievements as a journalist, his unequaled ac- 
complishments as an organizer, nor to dwell upon 
his great political ability, since these are already 
part of British history. I shall limit myself to 
a description of his personality. 

Broadstairs, Sunday evening. Lord North- 
cliffe's home at Broadstairs is an Elizabethan 
farm-house, to which several additions have been 
made during the centuries which have passed 

123 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

since it was first built. Like most of its kind, it is 
a rambling structure, whose exterior is some- 
what lacking in architectural unity. Its interior 
is very homelike and comfortable, with open fires, 
charming rooms, much old furniture and many 
books. 

I arrived at a quarter to six last evening, and 
was immediately taken to the work-room, a large, 
high-ceilinged apartment which at one time had 
been used as a billiard-room. 

An open fire was burning cheerfully on a 
hearth at the back of a raised alcove jutting in 
from the middle of one of the long sides of the 
room. Big shelves along the wall were filled with 
every conceivable kind of reference volume. 
Several tables were piled high with letters, tele- 
grams, and papers, which the secretaries were re- 
quired to find instantly whenever needed. On 
one table were placed various telephones, which 
were in almost constant use. 

Lord Northcliffe stood by the fireplace. He 
reminded me of a caged lion, at any moment 
ready to sally forth upon the floor below. It was 
not because he roared that he was lion-like, for 
roar he never does, but because it seemed as if his 
colossal energy was trying to break through in- 

1M 



%\n _■'.. ^ i BFhtvciS. 



My dear 'ood, 

I am not sure that v;e can use an artioie of 
this length in an abbreviated "Tines" and if it is 
out down I think that ybu had bettor do the out ting. 

1 am very sorry to hear that you were wounded, 
and- should rrush like you to ,50 to my wife's hospital 
if they oan move you. Will you let ;ne know at onse'r 

Yours sincerely, 

1 

I 



5or -ria ood. 



A typical Northcliffe letter. 



Northcliffe 

visible bars that intervened between him and the 
immediate attainment of a multitude of purposes. 

He walked back and forth within the restricted 
alcove, pausing suddenly from time to time to 
speak sharply and briefly. Thus he settled 
three or four vital matters every minute. As 
soon as there was an instant's delay one saw again 
the caged-lion phase. 

I have no intention of conveying the impres- 
sion that Lord Northcliffe is ever flustered or 
"beyond himself." He is always well within 
his own powers, and works smoothly, without the 
least squeak or friction. Indeed, he reminds one 
of a colossal dynamo working at high tension, 
for although things may fly off from it in all di- 
rections, the dynamo itself continues to function 
coolly, smoothly, and evenly. 

He invariably gives one the impression of 
possessing great reserve force. I have noticed 
that whenever an atmosphere of flurry surrounds 
him, it is caused entirely by office-boys, clerks, 
and other one-cylinder subordinates puffing and 
tearing to keep up with his smoothly running two- 
hundred-horse-power engine. Few indeed are 
the men who would not appear one-cylindered 
when in the presence of his tireless energy. 

125 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

It is impossible to enter a room where Lord 
Northcliffe is working and not be irresistibly 
drawn into activity. Yesterday evening when 
his greetings, courteous and brief, were finished, 
I withdrew to a corner of the workroom, but 
within a minute I had been called out again 
and set to correcting the proof of an article which 
he had recently written about the New Zealand 
Division. When that was finished, I was given 
a press cablegram to America to review, and 
afterwards was kept steadily busy until it came 
time to dress for dinner. 

I witnessed the signing of the day's letters, of 
which there were thirty-five in all, and observed 
a number of interesting details. Despite the fact 
that the letters had been taken down and typed 
by competent secretaries, Lord Northcliffe read 
each one slowly and carefully before signing it. 
In the whole batch he altered only one, and in 
that only a single word, which he crossed out and 
replaced by a synonym ; but in about every third 
letter he underscored a clause or sentence. 

Each letter was typed upon a single, large- 
size sheet of blue paper, with the "Times" en- 
graved at the top, and consisted of a few lines 
only, usually from four to eight. The lines were 

126 



Northcliffe 

single-spaced and in most cases were in one para- 
graph. This applied even to a letter to the 
Prime Minister, which touched upon three im- 
portant and separate topics. There were no su- 
perfluous words; no "I have received your let- 
ter," and never the address of the recipient. The 
letters began with "Dear So-and-so," and were 
signed in the lower right-hand corner, usually in 
pencil, with the one word "Northcliffe" written 
at an oblique angle, mounting toward the right, 
of which the accompanying illustration is a fair 
sample : 

Lord Northcliffe has the reputation of being 
a hard man toward his subordinates. He is said 
to drive them unmercifully, to wear them out, 
and then heartlessly to replace them with fresher 
men. From this some of his critics have con- 
cluded that he is cruel and hard-hearted. 

I am inclined to differ from this opinion. I 
think that Lord Northcliffe, although naturally 
kind, considers that in the midst of this great war 
the nerves and feelings of his subordinates are of 
little relative importance. He therefore sacri- 
fices them as ruthlessly as a great general might 
sacrifice a few privates to gain important ends. 

One cannot help feeling that he is kind-hearted, 
127 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

because he invariably is unselfishly considerate of 
all those who happen to be about him when his 
high-pressure hours are ended. At dinner last 
night, when his two secretaries and I were the 
only guests, he anticipated our slightest wants. 
In this he far exceeded formal politeness or any- 
thing to which we could possibly be entitled from 
a man of his importance. It was all so auto- 
matic and so evidently second nature that it was 
difficult to explain on other grounds than that of 
innate consideration and kindness for others. 

If he is a hard taskmaster to his subordinates, 
he demands even more of himself, for he is prob- 
ably the most indefatigable worker in all Eng- 
land. He rises at 5 a.m., has a cup of coffee at 
5:15, and starts in at 5 :30. Breakfast is served at 
8:80, luncheon at 1:15, while dinner and the 
end of his day's task come at 7:45 in the eve- 
ning. 

From 5 :30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. he works stead- 
ily, regardless of meals. At 5:30 a.m. all the 
London morning newspapers for the day are 
brought to him for inspection. Between that 
time and breakfast he reads rapidly every column 
they contain in order to keep himself fully abreast 
not only of everything in the newspaper world, 

128 



Northcliffe 

but in the world of affairs as well. While read- 
ing, he jots down notes and criticisms on every- 
thing, from type-setting to editorial policy, that 
may be interesting to his own editors ; these notes 
he embodies in letters written to them later in the 
day. 

His colossal energy enables him to wade 
through an enormous mass of matter relative to 
each of the various subjects in which he is par- 
ticularly concerned, while his unique power of 
concentration makes it possible for him to reduce 
the myriad of petty details to a definite impres- 
sion expressed briefly and pithily. He often in- 
scribes a criticism of one of his own papers in a 
single word, noted down on the front page of a 
copy, which is mailed back to the editor. 

During breakfast he dictates and telephones 
and interviews, gives orders and corrects proof; 
and thus he continues all through the day. Even 
the noon meal is employed in conferences upon 
a dozen different matters with people who have 
been asked in to luncheon for that purpose. 

The business of the day is supposed to be com- 
pleted and laid aside at 7:30 p.m., but in these 
strenuous war-times conversation constantly 
drifts back to the topics that are closely akin to 

129 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

work. Lord Northcliffe retires at 10 o'clock, is 
in bed at 10:15 and goes to sleep at 10:30, after 
being read to for fifteen minutes, sleeping for six 
and a half hours until five o'clock comes round 
again. Since the war began he has not varied 
this routine. It goes on week-days and Sundays, 
week in and week out, interrupted only by an 
occasional afternoon of golf and by his numerous 
trips to the front. 

In physical appearance Lord Northcliffe is 
rather thick-set, and is somewhat under six feet 
in height. His head is massive and well shaped, 
combining to a remarkable degree the character- 
istics of a fighter with those of a thinker. The 
most conspicuous features of his face are a strong 
jaw and very fine gray eyes. When in repose 
he holds his head slightly thrust forward. The 
strain of the tremendous pace which he has main- 
tained ever since the war began has only just be- 
gun to show in his face. 

On first meeting him one receives vividly the 
impression of tremendous reserve force and dy- 
namic aggressiveness lying alertly latent close to 
the surface. This impression persists, and in- 
creases with each subsequent meeting. 

One quickly perceives that Lord Northcliffe is 
130 



Northcliffe 

utterly contemptuous of conventional public 
opinion, and does not hesitate to run counter to 
petty criticisms of the moment, in doing anything 
which cold reason dictates. To my mind nothing 
better illustrates his disregard of formal public 
approval and his sterling good common sense 
than the fact that he invariably wears a sport- 
shirt with a soft collar. He wears it because it 
suits his comfort, and he wears it in season and 
out, summer and winter, regardless of the fact 
that it is considered execrably bad form, and that 
almost no other English gentleman would ven- 
ture it, particularly if he had embarked upon a 
public career. 

It is difficult to estimate his age from his ap- 
pearance ; he might be thirty, forty, or fifty. As 
a matter of fact, one would be unlikely to take 
any interest in the question unless he were a cen- 
sus-taker, for Northcliffe is one of those rare age- 
less persons in whom the number of his years 
seems irrelevant — a person who achieves success 
early or late, irrespective of whether he is young 
or has grown old. 

When speaking he has certain peculiarly per- 
sonal traits ; he utters each short sentence rather 
rapidly, biting it off at the end; then comes a 

131 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

brief pause, during which he seems to consider 
the new sentence in its entirety. It is as though 
he waited an instant before each successive phase 
in order to have it all in mind before converting 
thought to sound. 

His voice is low, pleasant, and cultivated, and 
he does not raise it even when he is most vehement. 
He never swears, nor does he make any use of 
slang. He is not a coiner of popular phrases, 
differing very markedly in this respect from men 
like Wilson and Choate. I have never heard him 
make a bon mot. He expresses his thoughts by 
scholarly employment of the king's English, and 
he does not, as a rule, use long or complicated sen- 
tences, but rather a succession of very short ones 
to explain or qualify his meaning, some of which 
are emphasized by a little sidewise gesture of the 
head. 

Northcliffe seldom interrupts conversation, 
and unless natural pauses occur he very often 
does not talk at all. He is rather sparing of 
words, but does not give the impression of taci- 
turnity. His natural inclination is rather to stim- 
ulate others to conversation, into which he injects 
pertinent comments and anecdotes. His pithy 
remarks are always original and amusing. 

132 



Northcliffe 

At dinner this evening he stated that in his 
travels he had seen four inanimate objects which 
had supremely impressed him: the Roman 
Forum, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canon of the 
Colorado, and Niagara Falls, "which/' he added, 
"one does not begin to understand until about the 
third day he has studied it." 

He prophesied that the warfare of the future 
would be almost altogether aerial, and that every 
country and all parts thereof would be vulnerable 
to the attacks of an enemy. 

After dinner we adjourned to a little sitting- 
room and there sat around an open fire, while 
Lord Northcliffe lay down at full length on a 
couch by the fireside. The secretaries were com- 
manded to bring the gramophone and to play 
furiously. They played rag-time and one-steps 
from 8 :45 until 10 o'clock, taking turns at shift- 
ing records and changing needles. Meanwhile 
conversation continued uninterrupted, except 
when the telephone bell in the adjacent hallway 
rang because of business so important that his 
editors felt obliged to call Northcliffe even in the 
midst of his sacred period of "rest." A secretary 
wrote down the messages and then came in to 
report. 

133 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

During the period between dinner and ten 
o'clock Lord Northcliffe positively refused to get 
up from his couch, and pretended to be resting 
constantly. It was easy to see that even when 
his body was in repose his subconscious mind was 
as alert as ever. On one occasion a secretary, 
having answered the telephone, reported the mes- 
sage, and, having been told what answer to trans- 
mit, went out again to the telephone, shutting the 
door behind him, while Lord Northcliffe resumed 
his conversation. The secretary in the hall out- 
side, in repeating in the telephone Lord North- 
cliff e's reply, got one word wrong, saying "Thurs- 
day" instead of "Monday." Lord Northcliffe, 
despite the discussion which was going on, heard 
it instantly even through the door, and as quick 
as a shot sent the other secretary rushing out to 
correct the mistake. 

At 9 :30 he ordered a secretary to telephone 
to the "Times" office and obtain the details of 
the next day's news. This is done every eve- 
ning, so that Lord Northcliffe may run over the 
day's items before he retires. The secretary was 
gone about ten minutes, and brought back six or 
eight pages of shorthand, beginning with a 
report of a destroyer's fight in the North Sea, 

134 



Northcliffe 

and ending with a resume of a violent attack 
upon Lord Northcliffe by some hostile news- 
paper. 

It is always a most illuminating sidelight upon 
any man's character to observe the attitude with 
which he sustains the abuse of his opponents, and 
it was, therefore, with keenest interest that I 
watched this little scene. Before beginning to 
read the attack the secretary grinned cheerfully 
and expectantly, while Lord Northcliffe lay at 
full length upon the couch, with his head turned 
in attentive interest, smiling such a smile of 
happy contentment as would have shamed the 
famous Cheshire cat. It was not difficult to see 
that he is a man who would be wretchedly un- 
happy without a plentiful supply of enemies, and 
that he values their attacks more highly than the 
plaudits of his friends. 

Lord Northcliffe 's most notable mental charac- 
teristic is a constructive imagination which en- 
ables him to see things as they really are rather 
than as they appear to be. His mind brutally 
cuts through the husks and shells of custom, habit, 
and precedent, of established systems and pre- 
conceived ideas to the kernel of truth within, 
which he examines boldly and dispassionately. 

185 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

He is, if anything, inclined to show too little con- 
sideration for these venerable shells and husks, 
which, after all, are of some use in life, being 
often the product of valuable past experience. 

He is an iconoclast, and a man of strong con- 
victions; yet these convictions seldom seem to 
prejudice the functioning of his intellect. 

His greatest and most dominant moral charac- 
teristic is patriotism. He serves but one master, 
his country. In return he enjoys the distinction 
of being the most hated man in England. His 
political friends are few and far between, for 
having determined with a passionate intensity 
that Great Britain shall win this war, he takes 
upon himself the privilege of attacking with the 
weight of his press and his personal influence any 
official or group of officials in his native country 
whose slowness or inefficiency seems to him to de- 
lay or hinder the winning of the war. And 
since, particularly under the recent "Wait and 
See" government, such persons and organizations 
were legion, Lord Northcliffe's enemies are also 
legion. 

Instead of keeping quiet and pretending that 
each successive mistake that England makes is 
another great "strategical retreat," as "decent 

136 




ta^w vU V^ J**>tk% 



Northcliffe 

Englishmen" are expected to do, he constantly 
points out Great Britain's blunders, and insists 
upon their being remedied with all possible speed. 

It is a well-known fact that nothing in heaven 
above or on the earth beneath or in hell below so 
enrages the Englishman of the old type, who 
seems congenitally incapable of conceiving that 
anything in England was or ever could be wrong, 
as to be told that his country is not in the natural 
order of things and by divine right superperfect. 
For years and years Englishmen have irritated 
foreign countries and their own colonies by an 
assumption of self-sufficiency and superiority in 
matters big and little. Lord Northcliffe set 
himself the task of combating this tendency, and 
whenever his nation made a mistake he cried his 
protest through the columns of the London 
"Times," the "Daily Mail," and the score of 
papers and magazines which he owns. Whenever 
he has discovered — and he usually discovers be- 
fore any one else — that Great Britain was mud- 
dling along into a new blunder, his papers have 
"gone the limit" the censor would allow and some- 
times beyond. 

Since the beginning of the war, he alone among 
all England's citizens has constantly refused to 

137 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

allow Englishmen to maintain their complacent 
assumption of superiority and their hereditary 
belief that they are immaculate and unbeatable, 
because of the accident that they were born Eng- 
lish ; and oh, Jupiter and Neptune ! how heartily 
they do hate and detest him for this prodding! 
But every time they are eventually forced, after 
undergoing the most dreadful mental agony, to 
admit that perhaps the matter under discussion 
might have been a little better arranged; indeed, 
on second thought, everything that his lordship 
says — blast him! — happens — this time — to be 
right. 

But they do not forget him, and in any case 
he would not allow them to. Nor do they forgive 
him. Their anger against him grows continu- 
ally. They detest him with the same fervency 
that a too heavy sleeper invariably displays 
toward one who wakens him from sound and com- 
fortable slumber. 

Much as the public men whom Northcliffe has 
scored may hate him, they fear him even more, 
since no one of them knows who may be the next 
to sustain an attack by his all-powerful press; 
therefore incompetency shudders, and the com- 
petent leaders in the war-game are kept con- 

138 



Northcliffe 

stantly on their mettle. But great as are the 
hatred and fear which Northcliffe inspires in his 
own countrymen, their need of him is still greater. 

Foreseeing clearly the assault which Germany 
was preparing against the world, he began urg- 
ing the adoption of conscription ten years before 
the fateful fourth of August, 1914, and for his 
pains was called a jingo and a yellow journalist, 
just as Lord Roberts for the same reason was 
called a weak-minded old dotard. 

Northcliffe always advocated the maintenance 
of the British ' 'two-power" Navy, and it is prob- 
able that but for his continued pressure the Ger- 
man Navy would have been permitted to surpass 
that of Great Britain. 

Since the war actually began, he has not only 
been right in every controversy which he started 
but has eventually converted the nation to his 
point of view. He overruled Kitchener when 
the latter was opposing increased shell produc- 
tion. To-day Great Britain manufactures and 
effectually uses a hundred shells for every one she 
made when Kitchener pronounced the supply 
sufficient. 

For two years past Northcliffe has protested 
that the Allies and neutrals were unwittingly ra- 

139 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

tioning and sustaining Germany, through the 
agency of Holland, Switzerland, and Denmark, 
and to-day at last even the United States real- 
izes the truth of this statement, and has in conse- 
quence declared provisional embargoes against 
those countries. 

During the early months of the war, he con- 
stantly urged the Asquith government to lay in 
vast stores of food against the lean years to come, 
and already Great Britain fully realizes that such 
a course would have nullified the U-boats. 

When Northcliffe saw that the Asquith gov- 
ernment was irretrievably inefficient, he over- 
threw it well-nigh single-handed, and set up in 
its place a more capable one. 

To-day he is insisting that press censorship is 
most pernicious, and that in ninety cases out of 
a hundred it is used solely to protect office-holders 
from suffering the consequences of their own stu- 
pidity and inefficiency. 

He is struggling to save Great Britain from 
herself, and may yet succeed ; and if he does, his- 
tory will know him as the valiant non-compro- 
miser who preserved the Empire despite her own 
determination to blunder to destruction. 

His country is too human not to continue, for 
140 



Northcliffe 

the present at least, to be utterly ungrateful to 
this man behind the scenes, whose fighting intel- 
lect is ever prodding and clubbing mule-like per- 
sons in high places. She calls him in present- 
day derision "the man who gets things done." 
Eventually that will become his title of greatest 
honor; and even now a few converts begin to ap- 
preciate him at his true value. 

I am conscious that my high esteem of Lord 
Northcliffe's services and abilities would not to- 
day be indorsed by any prominent Englishmen, 
for there is not one of them but has had his pet 
stupidities flayed by the Northcliffe press. 

In fairness to Lord Northcliffe, however, it 
must also be stated that, by contrast, most for- 
eigners who are familiar with his work would 
accept my valuation of his supreme importance to 
England and her Allies. 

Even the Germans understand his worth to 
his country, and have on two separate occasions 
sent expeditions across the channel to attempt his 
life. The compliment of these attacks he seems 
to appreciate as much as that conveyed by attacks 
of his enemies at home. He accepts both with 
the same grim smile. 

When recently his house at Broadstairs was 
141 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

bombarded by German war-ships, and a shell 
passed completely through it, but left him un- 
touched, he immediately telephoned the hard- 
worked staff of his London "Times," and in- 
formed them that "they would hear with mixed 
feeling that he was uninjured." 

Americans who know him well are unanimous 
in believing that ISTorthcliffe's true greatness will, 
as years pass, be increasingly appreciated in 
Great Britain, and that eventually future genera- 
tions, looking back with a more normal perspec- 
tive, will come gratefully to realize that but for 
this single fearless, unselfish patriot, England's 
doom would probably have been sealed, because 
she would have awakened all too late from her 
torpor of complacency. 



142 



IX 

TO FRANCE 

Sunday, February, 1917. I went to the War 
Office by appointment at three o'clock this after- 
noon to receive my final orders for France. 

One does not depart for the Front until it has 
been made clear to the War Office that someone 
in authority in France desires your presence and 
has work for you to do. I found that all the 
necessary formalities had been completed. A 
telegram having been received from my General, 
my orders and tickets were in readiness. 

Monday, . At 1:30 this afternoon 

I left London for France. 

At the Charing Cross station platform tickets 
were in great demand, as every officer was seen off 
by at least one person and most of them by 
several. 

Having secured my place in a first-class com- 
partment and had my luggage safely stowed 

143 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

away in the racks, I walked up and down to watch 
the crowd. Women predominated, and a splen- 
did lot they were, these English gentlewomen — 
handsome mothers, beautiful wives and pretty 
sweethearts. I began to feel very much in need 
of something of the kind myself, and a mo- 
mentary wave of intense homesickness swept over 
me. Although wearing the uniform of a British 
officer, I am in reality an American without close 
friends in London, and I suddenly realized that I 
had indeed come a very great distance from home 
to "do my bit" in this far-away war. 

The train reached the port of embarkation ex- 
actly on schedule time and two cross-channel 
transports, which were waiting for us, left 
promptly at 4 o'clock. 

All the officers, nearly a hundred in number, 
were assigned to the upper decks of one of the 
vessels, while the lower decks were crammed with 
solid masses of khaki-clad, mud-colored human- 
ity; drafts of enlisted men proceeding overseas 
to replace the wastage in divisions at the Front. 

When the two transports left the dock, they 
immediately put on full speed. As they forged 
steadily ahead and steamed out of the harbor, 

144 



To France 

three long and sinister looking British Torpedo 
Boat Destroyers came racing up from the open 
sea. During the crossing, the Destroyers cruised 
about us on all sides, for all the world like three 
well-trained setter dogs beating back and forth 
across an open prairie, now slowing to a walk and 
again breaking into a lope; now they ranged 
across our very bow and then cut off at a tangent 
for two or three miles, as if trailing up wind on 
some faint scent, leaving a foamy wake streaming 
out behind them. 

We reached the port of debarkation at six 
o'clock and cut through the narrow gap in the 
harbor's breakwater just as the dusk of evening 
was settling over the black water. As the boat 
warped to the dock, we perceived a huge black- 
board set up in full view, upon which was writ- 
ten the names of those officers who were to be 
met by Staff cars, together with their destina- 
tions and the numbers of automobiles which were 
waiting for them. The cars themselves stood in 
a long line upon the quay, with their soldier driv- 
ers beside them. 

It took me three quarters of an hour to rescue 
my kit-bag and Wolseley valise from the hold of 
the steamer, then after my military chauffeur 

145 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

had packed my luggage into the car and lighted 
his lamps, we were off through the starlit night ■. 

Although I had not seen the port for over two 
years, it looked quite unchanged. There was 
even the very same sentry post and barrier across 
the road at the upper end of the town, where we 
were challenged and had to show our military 
passes, which the driver had brought with him. 

As we tore up the long hill leading out of the 
city, we overtook a column of marching infantry. 
The long, winding, serpent-like line of soldiers' 
back, illumined by our brilliant headlights, could 
be seen extending up the hill until it faded away 
into the distance. 

According to invariable custom, the regiments 
were marching upon the right side of the high- 
way, leaving the left hand for any traffic which 
might need to pass; consequently we were 
able to run by without hindrance. We forged 
steadily ahead for several minutes until sud- 
denly, as we neared the head of the column, we 
saw that it had turned sharply to the left, directly 
across our front, and was disappearing down a 
side road, thus barring our passage with a moving 
wall of bodies. 

It is not customary for a Staff car, containing 
146 



To France 

a single officer, to break through and disarrange 
a marching column, unless he is of high rank or is 
on urgent duty, since by so doing he brings fifty 
to a hundred soldiers to a temporary halt and 
imposes upon them the necessity of making up a 
score of yards by double-timing, — no small in- 
convenience for a man carrying sixty odd pounds 
upon his back. 

Since I was neither a general officer nor upon 
pressing business, I ordered the driver to halt the 
car by the roadside until the end of the column 
had overtaken us, which delayed us not more 
than five or six minutes. 

The surrounding darkness was cut through in 
front of the car by the straight, narrow beams of 
our headlights, but remained impenetrable in all 
other directions. The successive ranks coming 
up the hill from the blackness behind, remained 
invisible when they passed abreast of us until, as 
their column cut diagonally across the front of 
the car, they came into the beams of light. 

They were passing so close that I could 
hear their labored breathing and smell the wet 
leather and stale perspiration. Rank after rank 
entered the light, marched across it and disap- 
peared again into darkness down the side street 

147 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

to the left. The individual men were merged 
into the composite whole. What I was watch- 
ing was not a great number of individual sol- 
diers, but a battalion cemented into unity by 
discipline. 

The sergeants were calling "Close up, close up 
— keep closed up," that everlasting cry which 
follows the infantryman of all nations through 
all climes. It is with him through mud and dust, 
rain and snow, heat and sudden death. It is 
the admonition which must already have been 
ages old when Caesar's legions marched through 
this same country of Gaul. It is the ceaseless 
order which, on the march, preserves the military 
unit and prevents it from straggling into its 
thousand component parts. 

Out of the darkness and through the lights of 
our head lamps and out into the darkness again 
the old cry was iterated and reiterated with every 
possible intonation and accent — "Close up, close 
up, — keep closed up !" 

For their own mutual benefit, soldiers must 
maintain a fixed and ordered distance one from 
another. Each and every man must march an 
exact, fixed number of inches behind the shoul- 
ders of the one in front of him, — no more, no less. 

148 



To France 

If he marches less than the specified distance, 
he finds himself treading upon the heels of his 
predecessor and bumping against his pack. On 
the other hand, if each rank in an infantry divi- 
sion should exceed the regulation distance by 
only as much as fifteen inches, it would lengthen 
the division as a whole by more than two miles, 
so that its rear elements would each day have to 
march an extra hour to reach their camp or to 
arrive upon the field of battle. 

It is, therefore, with good reason that the in- 
fantry soldier has from time immemorial marched 
to the cry of "Close up, close up — keep closed 
up." 

After a fast two hours' run through the starlit 
countryside, we reached that picturesque little 
French town which harbors the General Staff 
of the British armies in France. 

In peace-time it is a place much favored by 
visitors — American, British, French — who spend 
their summers in this beautiful region. 

I am not allowed to give the name of the town, 
for it is the order in all modern armies that the 
place which contains the G. H. Q. must never be 
mentioned either verbally or in writing, unless 

149 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

official business makes it absolutely necessary. 
At the present time the value of this precaution 
is doubtful. In a war of movement, however, 
it is very necessary. The regulation is therefore 
made permanent and constant so that the habit 
of concealing its location may become fixed, as a 
preparation for that future when the Germans 
are on the run and the Headquarters will follow 
the advancing army. 

The name of the town, where I was to spend 
my first night in France, was never once men- 
tioned even to me. My orders and tickets were 
merely for G. H. Q. and I had no idea to what 
particular spot in France I was going until I 
arrived and recognized the place as one which I 
had visited in the past. But for this, I should 
not at this moment know the name of the town 
in which I am billeted. 

I went directly to the building which contained 
the Headquarters of my General (name deleted 
by censor) and made*my way to his offices. Al- 
though it was long past the customary eight 
o'clock dinner hour, I found one of his staff still 
on duty and to him I reported. 

Although the officer who received me wore the 
crowns of a major, the red tabs of the perma- 

150 



To France 

nent staff officer and the ribbon of the D. S. O., 
he looked scarcely twenty-five years old. He in- 
formed me that the general was at dinner, but 
that he was expecting me. The young major 
added that he himself was already late for the 
meal and taking up his cap, gloves and stick sug- 
gested that we should walk together to the mess. 

On arriving he led me into the dining room, 
where the general's entire staff was in the midst 
of dinner. The general rose and with the infor- 
mal courtesy which is so characteristic of the 
British officer of the old school, said, "Every- 
body here, this is Major Wood; Major Wood, 
this is everybody here." 

A place had been saved for me and as I took it, 
I glanced with intense interest at the men sitting 
about the table. They were a quiet, reserved 
lot who looked more like scholars than soldiers, 
as do so many of the most effective officers in 
modern warfare. There were fifteen at table; 
with two exceptions they were all officers of 
superior rank, and eight of them, including the 
general, wore the ribbon of the D. S. O. 

What most impressed me, however, was their 
comparative youth. The majority of them were 
certainly not thirty years of age. The General 

151 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

who fills with brilliancy one of the most difficult 
and important posts in the entire British army, 
was only a junior captain when the war be- 
gan. 

The more one sees of war, the more one appre- 
ciates and endorses the old saying that "war is a 
young man's game." In war above all things 
"youth will be served." In war the daring judg- 
ment of youth is nearly always correct and the 
more cautious judgment of age is very often in 
error. 

History is replete with illustrations which con- 
firm this dictum. One is reminded for instance 
of the historic campaign of 1797 which the 
twenty-eight year old General, Napoleon, waged 
against the seventy-two year old Austrian Gen- 
eral, Beaulieu, on the plains of Piedmont and 
Lombardy. 

Napoleon opposed the untrammelled original- 
ity and tireless energy of youth to the memories 
and precedents instilled in his aged antagonist 
by the conquests and campaigns of his own youth 
of half a century before. 

While Beaulieu slavishly adhered to stated 
rules and principles, Napoleon devised a new and 
original system of warfare — a system which em- 

152 




Major Gener 
Freyberg, V.C., 
D.S.O. 

Age 30. A noted 
divisional c o m- 
mander in the 
British Army. 



Major Gen- 
eral Charteris, 
D.S.O. 

Age 40. Haig's 
Chief of Intelli- 
gence. 




Captain Ball, V.C., D.S.O., 
M.C. 

Age 21. Great Britain's best 
aviator. He brought down 42 
German aeroplanes. 



Commodore Tyrwhitt, 
D.S.O 

Age 40. Commander of 
the British destroyer fleet. 



War is a Young Man's Game. 



To France 

phatically diverged from the classic rules of his 
antagonist. 

Beaulieu, following long established prece- 
dents, was accustomed to advance blindly towards 
the enemy, content to protect his army from sud- 
den surprises by pickets and sentries, but leaving 
the selection of the actual terrain of the en- 
counter almost entirely to chance. 

Napoleon, on the other hand, discovered a 
method by which his army was invariably able to 
fight upon a field of battle most favorable to 
itself. 

He so arranged and co-ordinated his infantry, 
his cavalry, his transports, his communications, 
his artillery and the other elements of his army, 
that the bulk of his forces, whether in camp or on 
the march, was always so closely concentrated as 
to be almost within reach of his own voice, and 
could therefore be set in motion in any direction 
at the shortest notice. Instead, however, of 
merely protecting his army from sudden surprise 
by pickets and sentries, posted about in its 
immediate neighborhood, as did his opponent, he 
organized small mobile brigades composed of cav- 
alry, light infantry and horse artillery, one of 
which it was his custom to push out to a distance 

15a 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

of a day's march along each of the routes leading 
towards his enemy. 

Each avenue of approach was thus held by one 
mobile brigade, which was capable either of put- 
ting up a brief, stiff fight (which compelled the 
enemy to deploy and caused him to delay) or was 
able to make use of its superior mobility to es- 
cape. 

Whether advancing, retreating or standing at 
rest, Napoleon invariably maintained this ar- 
rangement, consisting of a concentrated army 
which was protected on all sides by mobile bri- 
gades. Sooner or later Beaulieu's army would 
come into contact with one of these protective 
outposts. 

If at the point of contact the advantage of posi- 
tion and terrain rested with the Austrians, Na- 
poleon's light brigade refused to fight and em- 
ployed its superior rapidity of movement to evade 
serious combat. If, however, the terrain was 
more favorable to the French, the brigade which 
was attacked offered a determined resistance, and 
desperately maintained its advantage of position, 
while Napoleon marching instantly to its assist- 
ance with all his forces, invariably arrived in time 

154 



To France 

to give battle to the Austrian army upon ground 
favorable to himself. 

Thus, as long as Beaulieu adhered to ancient 
rules and regulations, every battle in which he 
succeeded in engaging his youthful antagonist 
was upon ground favorable to Napoleon; youth 
had devised a newer system of warfare which was 
infallible as long as age adhered to the precedent 
and teachings of the past military epoch, ren- 
dered obsolete from that moment. 

Beaulieu, driven from pillar to post, his armies 
annihilated and Italy wrested from him by his 
opponent, tearfully protested that such results 
were only what might be expected from an an- 
tagonist who violated all the recognized rules of 
warfare. 

The illustration of the youthful Napoleon and 
the aged Beaulieu is by no means an exceptional 
one. The greatest military commanders in his- 
tory have been under forty-five. Alexander was 
thirty when he sighed for more worlds to conquer. 
Csesar at forty had subjugated all Gaul. Grant 
was forty-two when he became commander-in- 
chief of the Union Armies. Stonewall Jackson 
was only forty-nine when he died at Chancellors- 

155 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Office?' 

ville. Sheridan was thirty-three when he cut 
Lee's communications in the campaign against 
Richmond. Napoleon was thirty at Austerlitz, 
which he always called "la plus splendide de 
toutes mes batailles," — that battle he won so 
easily that the infantry of the Old Guard never 
got into action but stood in their ranks weeping 
with chagrin. 

Sometimes generals of advanced years have 
attained success by shrewd mimicry of youth, and 
sometimes they have won fame by ably serving 
youth or making youth the servant of their own 
maturer experiences. 

After his defeat at Gettysburg Lee, that mas- 
ter strategist and unselfish leader, from the full- 
ness of his heart cried, "If Jackson had been pres- 
ent the victory would have been ours"; and later 
the noble words "The fault is all mine." And 
so it is in the present war. Age has signally 
failed, except where it has been supported by 
an ironclad system as is the case of the older 
German generals, and then succeeded only tem- 
porarily. Kitchener, the doyen of the British 
army, was fatally wrong when he stated in 1915 
that a certain limited number of shells a day were 
amply sufficient for the new trench warfare, and 

156 



To France 

if the Northcliffe press, inspired by the profes- 
sional information furnished by younger officers, 
had not combated him, Great Britain would have 
been ruined, for she now uses a hundred times 
as many shells a day and needs every one of 
them. 

Even the most gloriously successful among 
older generals must in" time give way before the 
vigor and adaptability of youth. For truly war 
is a young man's game. One authority has even 
gone so far as to say that "ultimate victory in the 
present war will rest with that nation which first 
rids itself of old generals." 

The battleplane, the submarine, the postal-cen- 
sorship, the tank, the infantry attacks, the battle 
cruiser, the destroyer, the giant howitzers, and 
the Intelligence Department are now commanded 
by youngsters, who, when the war began, had just 
placed their feet upon the lowest rung of the lad- 
der, but who to-day hold all the most brilliant 
records. 

Even the victor of the Marne, like the victor 
of Austerlitz, had to stand aside when a new mil- 
itary epoch commenced. The dawn of the day of 
citizen armies sounded the knell of the latter, 
while the transition from open warfare to a war 

157 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

of trenches terminated the splendid career of 
the former. 

My General's department is charged, among 
other things, with the supervision and guidance 
of British War Correspondents who are quar- 
tered at the little village of Rolencourt, in an 
old Louis XV Chateau, situated in the middle of 
a park through which flows a trout stream. Dur- 
ing the coming week I am to make my headquar- 
ters in this village which is small and very primi- 
tive. Its houses boast no sanitary arrangements 
whatever ; and a small river of which the chateau's 
trout stream is a tributary, serves not only as the 
principal source of water supply of the village, 
but also as its sewer. Moreover the cows and 
horses are washed and watered therein, and one 
may also observe laundry operations in all their 
various stages being conducted within a few yards 
of the point where people come down with buck- 
ets to draw water. 

I am billeted in the most pretentious house of 
which the little hamlet boasts, — it is built of stone 
but like the more humble dwellings of brick and 
plaster is without either heating or plumbing ar- 
rangements. A Captain C. is already billeted 

158 



To France 

in the room across the hall from me, and our two 
servants are to live at the end thereof. 

The house is kept by a typical, talkative 
French peasant woman, about fifty years old. 
Like all the other women in the village, her ideas 
of housekeeping and sanitation are those of the 
Middle Ages. A large bucket which is kept be- 
hind the kitchen door and periodically emptied 
into the backyard, serves all her purposes. After 
looking into her kitchen and reconnoitering the 
yard something told me that I was destined soon 
to acquire those much dreaded pests, fleas — a fear 
which has already been at least doubly fulfilled. 

Upon my arrival my hostess met me at the 
door and greeted "Monsieur le Commandant" 
most enthusiastically. Upon discovering that I 
knew French her joy was unbounded. She in- 
formed me with some pride that she was "tres 
bavarde." I found that she could talk a steady 
stream without being deterred by such processes 
as breathing or eating, which are wont to inter- 
fere with the conversational rapidity of less ac- 
complished mortals. 

She showed me to my room, talking furiously 
all the time. It would have been utterly impos- 

159 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

sible to have slipped a word in edgewise, even if 
I had so desired. Having expatiated upon the 
washstand as a wonderful example of what mod- 
ern science had done for civilization, she proudly 
produced three duplicate keys to my door and ex- 
plained volubly, and with endless circumlocution, 
that one was for me, one for my servant, and one 
for herself. She then assured me with all em- 
pressment that no fourth key existed, and that 
therefore my goods and chattels would be as safe 
as if they were locked up in the vault of a bank. 
After talking breathlessly for some ten minutes 
she finally took her departure. 

My room is cold and damp, but is, nevertheless, 
infinitely better than the average billet which 
one would obtain in the more immediate neigh- 
borhood of the front. Besides the washstand 
it boasts a small table, an oil lamp and a feather 
bed — and what more could one reasonably ask 
for when en guerre? 

Its only other furnishings are gaudy litho- 
graphs of Jesus and Mary, which hang side by 
side upon the wall at the foot of the bed and stare 
at me fixedly. They depict both the Saviour and 
the Virgin as being quite characterless individ- 
uals, scarcely twenty years of age, who smile 

160 



To France 

sweetly while exposing to the public gaze flaming 
hearts tortured by thorns. 

Merely to look at them instils in me rebellious 
and atheistic thoughts. If I have to stay in this 
billet for any length of time, one of two things is 
bound to happen, — either I must remove the pic- 
tures or I shall completely lose what little reli- 
gion I possess. 



161 



X 



THE ROMAN ROAD FROM AMIENS TO THE 
BATTLE FRONT 

March 14th,, 1917 . Amiens, as I saw it to-day, 
was a peaceful, normal French city, in which 
commerce and business proceeded as usual. The 
only superficial evidence of war was the presence 
in the streets of numerous French soldiers in 
their pale blue uniforms, and of Australians con- 
spicuous for their broad felt hats. 

The inhabitants seemed almost to have forgot- 
ten that thirty months ago their city was for more 
than two weeks in German hands. 

The present British front trenches on the 
Somme are about forty kilometres away, along 
the old Roman road which runs from Amiens to 
Bapaume. 

We left peaceful Amiens in a big staff car 
and proceeded towards the battlefront. It was 
extremely interesting to mark the various suc- 
cessive stages through which we passed in going 
from peace to war. 

162 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

As the car left the outskirts of the city, it en- 
tered a quiet and prosperous countryside. The 
sky above was an untroubled blue and plough- 
men were busy in the fields. Along the road 
were many women, children and old men, with 
here and there a cripple. No able-bodied young 
men were visible and soldiers were nowhere to be 
seen. Some of the people plodded along on foot, 
while others were driving carts and wagons of 
various descriptions. 

We passed one very singular vehicle which im- 
pressed me as being pathetically expressive of 
that France behind the lines which "carries on" 
so steadfastly — which is even more courageous 
and more unconquerable than the military 
France which stands on guard across the battle- 
front. To this vehicle two setter dogs and an 
old, white-haired man were harnessed, three 
abreast. The little cart was loaded with farm 
produce being hauled to market. The man was 
in the center of this strange team with a dog on 
either hand ; all were tugging stolidly, with heads 
and shoulders bent forward against the pull of 
the traces. They did not look up even when our 
big military automobile raced past them. 

Ten minutes run beyond the outskirts of 
163 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

Amiens, we came upon the first sign of war, when 
we overtook a group of German prisoners who 
were diligently mending the road. They were 
still in their feldt-grau uniforms and were work- 
ing under the direction of their own non-commis- 
sioned officers. Two or three British Tommies 
with rifles and fixed bayonets stood guard in the 
middle distance. The Boches were busily at 
work and, as our car approached, their sergeant 
sprang to attention, standing rigidly with heels 
clicked together and hands at the salute. Dur- 
ing the next eight or ten miles of our progress, 
we passed seven or eight similar groups engaged 
in the same work, the last one being a few miles 
before Albert and at a considerable distance 
from the front. 

The road from Amiens to Albert, one of 
France's many splendid military highways, is 
among the oldest in Europe. It was originally 
constructed, nearly two thousand years ago, by 
engineers of the ancient Roman Empire, and 
covers the twenty-seven kilometres between the 
two cities without a single curve. It is twenty- 
five feet wide with the best of metalled surfaces, 
laid on a deep foundation. 

For the first few miles out of Amiens, the sur- 
164 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

face of the road was smooth and unimpaired, but 
as we progressed towards the front, it became 
steadily more and more worn by the endless 
heavy war traffic which passes over it. An al- 
most continuous double stream of great guns, 
steam tractors, staff cars, light batteries, ammu- 
nition trains, and motor trucks of every conceiv- 
able size were on the move. 

Among the trucks which we met during the 
thirty-five or forty minutes of our run to Albert, 
were Daimlers, Karriers, Peerless, Albions, Den- 
nis, Leylands, Wolseleys, Commers, Garfords 
and Thornycrofts. They travelled in fleets of 
ten or twelve, each fleet being composed exclu- 
sively of machines of one make. 

The constant pounding and rumbling of the 
war traffic wears down the road surface almost 
as fast as it can be repaired. All along the way 
troops of pioneers, alternating with groups of 
German prisoners in an almost constant line, 
were patching or mending the road, which, as we 
progressed, became steadily more rutty and mud- 
dier until, as we approached Albert, the mire was 
already inches deep, and our car, as it sped along, 
threw out to right and left a bow wave of slime. 

Five or six kilometres before reaching Albert, 
165 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

we topped a rise and saw in the distance the bat- 
tered tower of its cathedral, with its surmount- 
ing gilded statue of the Virgin standing out from 
the top of the tower in that precarious horizontal 
position to which the German bombardment has 
bent it, holding the infant Jesus at arm's length 
over the void below. All France believes that 
the war will continue as long as this statue main- 
tains its present position, but that the day when it 
finally topples into the street, will see France 
triumphantly victorious. 

We raced down the hill towards the town. 
No longer were ploughmen to be seen in the 
fields, which instead were crowded with the en- 
campments and picket lines of great masses of 
cavalry, artillery and infantry lying in reserve or 
resting after a turn in the trenches. 

We entered the outskirts of the town and 
passed through its dismally battered streets, de- 
serted except for occasional soldiers of the Anzac 
corps. Not a single woman or child was to be 
seen. Even the policemen, who stood on the 
street corners to direct traffic, were soldiers con- 
verted into guardians of the law by the simple 
expedient of attaching to them a black armlet 

; 166 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

bearing the red letters M. P. (military police). 

From time immemorial it has been character- 
istic of war that it is a business carried on almost 
exclusively by man and his equine ally. From 
Albert to the front there is a stretch of country 
some 15 or 20 kilometres deep, in which the busi- 
ness of warfare holds exclusive sway, and as we 
penetrated ever farther from peace into the land 
of war, we no longer saw any human beings save 
soldiers, nor any animals except horses and 
mules. 

From Albert to the German lines, and beyond 
for that matter, there exist no women or chil- 
dren, no fish or fowl, no cattle or sheep ; even the 
trees have been obliterated from the landscape, 
while the rumbling of the guns is the most con- 
stant and characteristic sound. 

As we leave the town and its battered cathe- 
dral, we immediately enter upon that wide area 
directly behind the artillery emplacements and 
the firing line which is devoted to organization 
and supplies, and is the kingdom of the Army 
Service Corps. Here the landscape is dotted 
with supplies and ammunitions stacked in 
great piles — spoken of in military parlance as 
"dumps." Immense quantities of shells, rations, 

167 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

barbed-wire, entrenching tools, small arms am- 
munition, duck-boards, spare wagons, lumber, 
and a myriad of other stores are piled up on 
every side. 

Thousands of motor lorries discharge their 
cargoes and then return in search of more. 
Mule teams and caterpillar tractors pick up loads 
as soon as they are set down by the motor trucks, 
and continue the tedious journey towards the 
ultimate front, through mud which becomes ever 
progressively deeper as one advances towards the 
sound of the guns. 

The road now begins to be pitted with great 
shell craters — round holes from three to ten feet 
across and from one to three feet deep, blasted 
out of the hard road surface. Working parties 
of engineers are scattered along the route in 
greater and greater numbers. They are contin- 
ually filling crushed stone in the craters and ruts. 
The heavy traffic works against them in. a race of 
destruction which soon reduces their repairs to 
muddy morasses. Their work is never ending. 
They must go over it again and again. 

Wagons drawn by mules, and long trains of 
motor trucks plough through the ever-deepening 
mire, lurching from side to side as first one wheel 

168 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

and then another sinks down into a shell hole 
filled with soupy mud and then climbs out again. 

The roadbeds underneath this coating of mire 
are the only solidity in all this wide country. 
Their surface is ragged and pitted, and covered 
deep with slime, yet they at least boast a firm 
foundation which intervenes between one and the 
fate of sinking through to China. The country 
to right and left, which is by courtesy referred to 
as fields, and the gutters on either side of the road- 
way, are bottomless pits of mud into which at 
each step a man sinks to his knees, while a 
draught animal, which has once plunged in, can 
only be extracted by blocks and pulleys. 

The roadside is dotted with the carcasses of 
humble horse heroes whose dead bodies grimly 
attest the severity of equine life on the transport 
line; some of them have actually been drowned 
in mud, some have been inextricably entangled 
in well-nigh bottomless gutters and have been 
shot; some had been the victims of accidents, 
and others had died of sheer exhaustion, aggra- 
vated by exposure to the constant cold and rain 
of winter. 

As we slowly and patiently pick our way 
around shell-crater morasses and through the 

169 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

ever thickening traffic, the boom . . . bang . . . 
boom, boom of the cannonading grows steadily 
louder and more distinct. 

Gradually we leave behind us this kingdom of 
the Army Service Corps, and three kilometres be- 
yond Albert reach La Boiselle and the edge of 
the area of last summer's offensive, which history 
has agreed to call the Battle of the Somme. 
Here we are still many kilometres away from the 
present front, for foot by foot the Germans have 
during many months been pushed back by long 
and terrific battles. 

Every yard of the weary way has been the 
scene of separate struggles and of individual 
tragedies. The ground for miles and miles has 
been churned up by thousands of great shells, 
whose craters are everywhere so close together 
that their edges intersect. Each square yard of 
ground has been blown into the air, not once, but 
a hundred times. As far as the eye can reach, 
no living thing is visible, no bird nor beast, nor 
tree nor shrub, nor blade of grass, but only end- 
less mud churned up 'by incessant shell fire. 

Here and there the remains of some section of 
an old trench, blown almost out of recognition by 
numberless explosions, are still faintly visible. A 

170 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

few battered, shredded stumps are all that now 
remain of once great forests. 

Broken, twisted strands of barbed-wire lie 
rusting in the mud, while tens of thousands of un- 
exploded "dud" shells and hand grenades are 
scattered on every side. Little groups of 
wooden crosses pathetically clustered together as 
if for company, add to the utter desolation of the 
scene, while here and there the long winter's 
rain has washed down the mud of some battered 
parapet, thereby exposing a bit of rotten uni- 
form, a booted foot, or a mummied hand. The 
only sounds are the splash of the rain and the 
rumble of the distant battle. In this blighted 
desert nothing moves, save here and there a jet- 
black raven, who hops silently, slowly and sol- 
emnly about, a step at a time, amid the muddy 
debris, evidently in the hope that the constant 
rains may perchance have uncovered for his gus- 
tation some new bit of pollution. 

Beyond La Boiselle, at a point some thirteen 
or fourteen kilometres from the front, we come 
upon the first batteries of British heavy guns. 
They are camouflaged under canopies in order to 
escape the observation of enemy aircraft. Some 
are for the moment silent, while others fire slowly 

171 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

and methodically, their crews loading and aiming 
smoothly and efficiently, with an expression of 
boredom upon their faces which could not have 
been excelled if they had been driving a steam 
roller, or running a water pump instead of firing 
a cannon. 

Beyond this point the noise of shells from the 
British batteries, passing over head, is constantly 
with us. 

Big shells, as they tear their way through the 
air, make a noise which is peculiar to themselves. 
It is not exactly like any other sound, and it is 
difficult to find for it a comparison. It might, 
however, be approximately described as a noise 
mid- way between that made by tearing a sheet of 
strong linen and that of a high wind whistling 
through the rigging of a ship. It has been lik- 
ened to an express train travelling at top speed 
and blowing off steam as it goes. 

It differs, however, from all of these in that it 
is always in a regular diminuendo or crescendo. 
When a shell starts from one of our own guns, 
one hears first the crash of the discharge, fol- 
lowed in diminuendo by the noise of the shell 
progressing farther and farther towards the 
enemy. This is called a "departure." 

ra 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

A German shell, on the other hand, exactly re- 
verses this process; one first dimly hears the far 
off rush of the shell as it approaches, rising in 
crescendo to a scream and finally terminating 
by the roar of the burst. This is called an "ar- 
rival." 

Big shells climb their way through the air 
much more slowly than one would at first sup- 
pose. When the wind is in the right direction, 
one sometimes hears them continuously for sev- 
eral seconds. Standing behind one of the Brit- 
ish 9.2" howitzers and timing its flight, I have 
been able to distinguish the diminuendo de- 
parture of its shell for as long a period as eight 
seconds. 

Beyond Pozieres, at a point nine kilometres 
from the front, which now runs just west of 
Bapaume through two little villages called 
Grevillers and Ligny-Thilloy, we pass yet an- 
other milestone in our progress from peace to 
war; we enter the zone of aerial activity. Here 
dozens of aeroplanes are constantly in view, some 
flying low on their way to or from the hangars, 
others circling about at higher altitudes, observ- 
ing and reporting the effect of our artillery fire, 

173 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

while still others are nearly invisible specks far 
up in the distant sky. 

Every now and again groups of fleecy little 
puffs of smoke from nothing, appear as if by 
magic in the sky beside a machine. Several 
times the stuttering rat — tat — tat of machine 
guns comes faintly to our ears, to indicate that 
an aerial combat is in progress at some point 
high out of sight overhead. The charred re- 
mains of wrecked aeroplanes dot the desolate 
battlefield and give graphic evidence of the nu- 
merous casualties which result from these com- 
bats. 

In the zone of the front, aerial activity is so 
continuous that the spectator very quickly loses 
interest and ceases to look upward when sounds 
of strife float down out of the sky. 

As we approach Courcellette, which is some 
five kilometres from the front, we come upon 
that particular battlefield where last September 
the far-famed British tanks made their first dra- 
matic appearance. The wrecks of several of 
these monsters, which had during the strife been 
hit by shells, still lie supine, abandoned upon the 
muddy, shell-ploughed fields. 

174 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

During the battle, one of these had already 
passed across the old German front line trench 
before an enemy shell had finally wrecked its en- 
gine. Its heroic crew had sallied forth into a 
storm of machine-gun and rifle fire to fill sand- 
bags with which to plug the gashes made in its 
armour. They had then crawled back into their 
castle, slammed the door behind them, and in 
spite of casualties, valiantly held their positions, 
firing their guns steadily up and down the enfi- 
laded German trenches until other tanks, and 
bodies of British infantry eventually came to 
their support and consolidated the ground they 
held. 

During the action, a German aeroplane had 
been shot down by an allied appareil de chasse 
and had crashed to earth within a few yards of 
the fighting tank. After the British victory, the 
German pilot and his observer had been buried 
beside two members of the tank's crew, and the 
four rude graves were united in one row. 

At Courcellette we are well within the zone of 
the German artillery fire, and the crash of our 
own guns and the diminuendo "departures" of 
their shells is interspersed with an almost con- 

175 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

stant succession of crescendo "arrivals" which 
burst here and there upon the roads or about us 
on the field of battle. 

As we approach the site of the late village of 
Le Sars, which lies only two or three kilometres 
from the present German trenches, we draw near 
to a hollow bounded by two gentle slopes. 

Here, during the previous night, the officer in 
charge of the carrying parties of an infantry 
brigade had pitched a group of tents and depos- 
ited therein the rations and supplies belonging to 
his brigade. Evidently he had supposed that 
the shallow little valley was invisible from the 
German positions. As we approach, however, 
we easily perceive the incorrectness of his calcu- 
lation, for German howitzers hidden somewhere 
far behind the horizon are, with precise accuracy, 
throwing salvo after salvo of big shells into the 
little camp. 

The Tommies, who compose the carrying par- 
ties of the brigade, stand or sit about in a semi- 
circle at a distance of two or three hundred yards 
and disconsolately watch the destruction of two 
days' rations. 

In war time the foot-soldier lives upon a plane 
176 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

of fundamentals. The state of the weather and 
the condition of his feet are to him matters of far 
greater importance than a cabinet crisis or the 
intervention of America. Whether his next jam 
ration will be strawberry instead of plum-and- 
apple is a matter of grave concern, while the loss 
of a meal more excites him to profanity than 
does ever the danger of sudden death. 

As we pass the Tommies' gallery, we overhear 
much which they have to say in regard to the 
piece de theatre of which they are the audience. 
They avail themselves to the very full of the priv- 
ilege of grumbling and "grousing" which the 
British Tommy invariably regards as his inalien- 
able right. Their attitude seems to be quite 
detached, and no thought of personal danger ap- 
pears to enter their minds. Their comments are 
made in the same vein which one would expect 
to hear at a Y. M. C. A. entertainment which did 
not suit their peculiar tastes. 

Standing like spoiled children in exaggerated 
attitudes of dejection, they comment unfavorably 
on life in general and on war in particular. 
They express their uncomplimentary opinion of 
the weather, the state of the roads, of "pic- 
turesque Picardy," of "flowery Flanders," and of 

177 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

the "summery Somme." What, however, seems 
most to irritate them, as they listen to salvo after 
salvo of six inch Jack Johnsons arriving, and 
watch tents, stores and mud flying promiscuously 
into the air, — is not that the Germans are shelling 
their stores, for that is a matter of course as much 
as the mud and rain — but that their officers will 
not allow them to walk in and rescue their rations. 

"Why," says one, "we could easily go in and 
come out again while the blinking Bodies are 
loading up between salvos." 

That such a proceeding is not as simple as the 
Tommy thinks is soon proved in a dramatic 
manner. 

The little encampment happens to be pitched 
quite close to the highway and thus any shells 
which are "over," are likely to strike the road, 
along which artillery caissons and supply wagons 
are passing as they carry loads to the front or re- 
turn empty for new consignments. 

Even as we watch, a caisson tops the little rise 
and starts down the road towards the hollow. It 
is drawn by three teams of mules, each near mule 
being ridden by an artillery driver. The cor- 
poral in charge, as he approaches the point of 
danger, observes the bursting shells with evident 

178 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

disquietude and pulls up a hundred yards from 
the encampment. 

Like the Tommy who wishes to rescue his 
stores, the corporal evidently conceives the idea 
that between successive salvos there will be ample 
time for action. He pauses to await an oppor- 
tunity. 

A salvo of shells comes tearing through the air 
and bursts boom — boom — boomoom among the 
tents. The corporal gives the word and in- 
stantly the drivers whip up their mules and start 
past the danger zone at a fast trot, the most rapid 
pace which the state of the road will allow. 

At the very moment they are abreast the en- 
campment, the ominous sound of two more 
"arrivals" suddenly makes itself heard. Almost 
before one realizes what is happening they burst, 
— one fairly among the tents, causing the drivers 
instinctively to duck their heads to avoid the 
flying bits of j agged steel. The other shell, with 
a blinding flash, lands squarely on the road. A 
cloud of flying gravel, dust and smoke envelopes 
the teams. Through it one dimly sees a mule on 
end, then the leading team, free and riderless, 
galloping aimlessly down the road in our direc- 
tion. One of these mules is limping. As they 

179 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

reach the gallery, whose spectators have been 
watching a tragedy which was, alas, not mere 
play-acting, several Tommies detach themselves 
from the semicircle and approach the mules, who 
pull up and allow themselves to be caught. 

Leaving behind us our piece de theatre we ad- 
vance down the road toward Le Sars and soon 
encounter a sign which admonishes us that "This 
road is not to be used in daylight. All ranks 
will keep to the trenches." 

The sign stands at the entrance to a communi- 
cation trench, into which we descend. From 
now on we are below ground, winding our way 
between the walls of narrow ditches. 

We march upon duck-boards, — those minia- 
ture board walks with which the bottoms of 
trenches are paved. Without them the constant 
passing of the troops would quickly churn the wet 
ground into ever-deepening mud, which would 
eventually become so deep as to make traffic im- 
possible. 

At first the trench we have entered runs 
straight but after a time it begins to zig-zag its 
way around traverses, constructed to localize the 
effect of any shell which may burst inside, and 

180 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

also to act as protection against the enfilade fire 
of rifles or machine-guns, which might otherwise 
sweep the trench from end to end. 

Side trenches begin to jut off to right and 
left. We soon find ourselves in a maze of 
trenches and it is only by continual inquiries that 
we keep to our appointed way. 

We frequently encounter carrying parties, 
varying in size from half a dozen to a score of 
men, who are transporting munitions and ma- 
teriel to the front, or are returning to the rear for 
new loads. The perspiring Tommies are loaded 
down with every variety of supplies from small- 
arms ammunition to empty sand-bags, and from 
duck-boards to soup. In the narrow passage- 
ways, we sometimes find it very difficult to 
squeeze past these caravans. 

Short trenches branch off to right or left, each 
with a purpose of its own. In one is the en- 
trance to a dressing station, situated thirty feet 
below ground at the bottom of a dugout. An- 
other is labelled "Battalion Dump" and is filled 
with a heterogeneous collection of stores and mu- 
nitions. A third leads to the emplacement of a 
battery of trench mortars, and yet another to the 
headquarters of an infantry battalion. 

181 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

On all sides subterranean activity is in full 
swing. Working parties are busily digging 
trenches, revetting walls, laying duck-boards, or 
filling sand bags. 

Eventually we reach the support-trenches, 
where many men sit about at the entrance of dug- 
outs, quietly waiting a call to duty, and here we 
begin to see cleverly concealed machine-gun em- 
placements. The trenches now become muddier 
and are less often paved with duck-boards. 

At last, after much splashing through mud, we 
reach the extreme front line. Here the atmos- 
phere is one of quiet efficiency and orderliness. 
Most of the occupants are sitting on the "fire 
steps" or in little dug-outs let into the walls of 
the trench. Here and there a motionless sentry 
intently examines no-man's land through a peri- 
scope. In this vicinity no one feels any inclina- 
tion to talk loudly or to move unwarily. 

A sentry warns us "In that bit of trench, sir, 
you must bend over as you go. It is enfiladed by 
an enemy sniper. He 'pipped' one of our fel- 
lows through the head there yesterday." 

I look through a periscope. The view is 
monotonous and uninteresting. In the immedi- 
ate foreground stand the British wire entangle- 

182 



The Road from Amiens to the Battle Front 

merits, a maze of black strands. Beyond them 
lies a stretch of bare ground, terminated two 
hundred yards away by a belt of German wire, 
behind which one perceives an irregular and 
barely distinguishable line of raw earth — the 
parapet of the German front line trench. 

No-man's-land is strewn with "dud" shells, 
and pock-marked with water-filled shell-holes, 
while the ground is littered with clods of earth and 
sod, scattered by the bursts. The bodies of two 
Germans, scarcely distinguishable from the gray 
earth in which they lie, are pointed out to us ; they 
were killed a few nights ago in a combat of 
patrols. 

Behind the enemy front trench, other lines of 
turned up earth are faintly visible. They look 
extraordinarily like mole-hills. 

As far as the eye can see nothing moves. 
Shell-holes and wire entanglements are the 
only definite features of the empty landscape. 
Everything else is vague. 



183 



XI 

THE ANCRE 

Thursday, March 15th, 1917. Yesterday was 
spent along the so-called Somme front. To-day 
I travelled over that of the Ancre. We first 
motored to Hamel, ten kilometres from the front ; 
further than this we could not go in a machine be- 
cause of the mud, shell holes and congested traffic 
which blocked the roads. 

We reach Beaumont Hamel, famous for the 
successful joint attack of last September by the 
tanks and the British infantry, but so completely 
has it been destroyed by shell fire that we passed 
entirely through its site and on beyond without 
recognizing it. We place it only when we in- 
quire its location of a stray soldier, who says in 
some surprise, "Why, you have just come out of 
it!" 

We plod across country over the high ridge 
beyond Beaumont Hamel, the scene of some of 

184 



The Ancre 

the heaviest fighting of the present war. Here 
the dreadful desolation surpasses even that which 
we saw yesterday on the Somme beyond La Boi- 
selle. The plateau-like top of the ridge is one 
sea of mud, pitted with an infinite number of 
water-filled shell-holes and seamed with succes- 
sive lines of old trenches which the British have 
taken from the Germans one by one. 

Each line is exactly like all the rest. First we 
pass old British trenches, then the wire which had 
protected them,, then across the original no- 
man's-land until we reach the shattered German 
wire, strewn about in bits upon the ground, and 
finally come into the captured first-line German 
trench, which as soon as taken had been turned 
about to face the other way. This was protected 
on the far side by a newer mass of our own wire, 
and faced yet another German trench. 

And thus it went on interminably, trench after 
trench, each conquered from the Germans by its 
own little battle, which had reaffirmed the pres- 
ent superiority of the British forces over the 
Germans. Each successive no-man's-land was 
strewn with the British and German dead. 

At one point a dead German lay in a shell- 
hole full of water, his body completely submerged 

185 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

with only his hands, feet and ghastly head pro- 
jecting above the surface. In future bad 
dreams, I shall long see that corpse lying in its 
shell-hole bathtub in the midst of an interminable 
wilderness composed of equal parts of mud and 
debris. 

The ground is littered with an infinite num- 
ber of bits of abandoned equipment, which makes 
up the refuse marking the scene of every hard- 
fought battle. Strewn about in all directions 
are rifles, bombs, grenades, helmets, caps, 
broken rifles, bayonets, dud-shells, fuse tops, 
empty cartridges, leather equipment, bits of 
cloth, empty boxes, bully-beef tins, shattered 
duck-boards, broken sandbags and a thousand 
similar items. 

Not a single yard is without its shell-hole. 
Literally thousands of tons of projectiles had 
fallen into every acre; — expensive ploughing 
this, at something like half a million dollars an 
acre! 

We reach Miraumont. Aeroplanes by dozens 
are constantly flying overhead at various heights ; 
guns are thundering to the right, to the left and 
all around us, for the great battles of the Somme 

186 



The Ancre 

and the Ancre which have lasted almost con- 
stantly for eight months, are at last coming to a 
victorious close. The Germans, beaten back step 
by step for twenty kilometres, are no longer able 
to stand the pressure and are beginning a whole- 
sale retreat from the entire Somme front. 

On the far horizon, we can see two columns 
of smoke rising against the sky. They mark the 
sites of Achiet-le-Petit and Bapaume now set 
on fire by the Germans as a preliminary to their 
retirement. 

Miraumont itself has been knocked absolutely 
flat by the German artillery. It has, in fact, 
been so completely wrecked that it is reduced to 
heaps of rubbish, among which one only occasion- 
ally finds even bits of brick and splinters of wood. 

Here we begin to meet the wounded, picking 
their slow way back from the front, some walk- 
ing, others carried high on stretchers. We 
pass one who with his right hand is holding a 
shattered left arm across his body. He grins 
cheerfully and remarks, "I Ve got a Blighty one, 
this time!", by which he means that although his 
wound is not by any means a fatal one, it is still 
serious enough to send him back to "Blighty" 
(England). 

187 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

Fresh drops of blood float on the pools of mud 
along the road and look for all the world like 
those by which one tracks a stricken stag. 

Many dead horses, some very recently killed 
by shell-fire, dot the streets of the little town. 
One of them has been temporarily used to fill a 
shell-hole in the road, until the fatigue parties in 
charge of their reconstruction can secure more 
durable material. 

Leaving Miraumont behind, we continue up 
the valley of the Ancre to the village of Irles, 
which was in German hands only a day or two 
ago. It was heavily shelled this morning and is 
liable to be shelled again at any moment. A 
fatigue party of infantry is resting along the 
roadside, having just finished repairing the road 
so that the artillery may to-night, during the 
hours of darkness, move up to the front. They 
have filled shell-holes with debris of all sorts and 
after thus smoothing the way, have paved the 
village street from end to end with broken 
bricks. 

In the farther end of the town we come upon a 
small yellow dog sitting on the front steps of a 
wrecked cottage. He would doubtless prefer to 

188 



The Ancre 

seek refuge inside the cottage, but unfortunately 
it no longer has any inside. Standing at the top 
of the steps one looks not into a house, but down 
into an open cellar filled with broken bricks. 
The forlorn little dog seems to be the only living 
thing which the Germans have left in the village. 
He steadfastly refuses to be coaxed away from 
the ruins of his home. He seems to consider it 
his duty still to stay and guard it, and therefore 
politely refuses the honors and emoluments of 
the position of mascot, which each new regiment 
or battery offers him as it passes his front 
steps. 

Although his expressive eyes show loneliness, 
and a sad inability to keep pace with life's com- 
plications, he nevertheless does his best to be 
friendly, and show welcome and approval for the 
soldiers who have rescued him from German 
bondage, with all the courteous dignity to be ex- 
pected from an acting Mayor. Sticking faith- 
fully to his home steps, he is patted by hundreds 
of passing Tommies, who not only express their 
characteristic fondness for all animals in this way, 
but also by more substantial marks of esteem in 
the form of bits of food. Altogether the dog's 
position may be said to have some compensations. 

189 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

Beyond Irles we meet a platoon of Tommies 
returning from the front, having done their turn 
at active fighting. One of them is wearing a 
German spiked helmet, and every time he en- 
counters a party going in the opposite direction, 
he rushes towards them, throwing his arms into 
the air, and screams "Kamerad, kamerad, me und 
Gott are kamerad!" 

Night is falling as we return down the left 
bank of the Ancre. The beautiful quiet of even- 
ing is troubled only by the occasional rumble of 
the guns. 

We walk directly towards the west and 
straight before us a red and smoky sun, like a 
disc of copper, is slowly sinking towards the hori- 
zon. 

The grim skeletons of trees which have been 
knocked about by shell fire are silhouetted against 
the sunset sky; their blackened forms stand up 
from the stagnant waters of the Ancre, which re- 
flect the dying sun and borrow its blood-red color. 
Flocks of ducks fly up and down the valley. 

The sun has set. Darkness falls. The rum- 
ble of the battle, as we progress farther and 

190 



The Ancre 

farther to the rear, grows ever fainter. The dis- 
tant horizon is fitfully lit, as with heat lightning, 
by flashes from the guns. Once when we are al- 
ready five or six miles from the front, the peace- 
ful quiet of the evening is suddenly broken by 
the crash of German heavy shrapnel, fired from 
a great distance, which burst with red flames high 
in the air over the road along the river. 

Through the darkness one hears the wild cries 
of duck and snipe, and the whistling of the wings 
of widgeon. 

It is a long and weary walk through everlast- 
ing mud, but at last we approach Hamel where 
our motor still awaits us. Camp fires flicker 
through the dusk of evening and illuminate sim- 
ple little pictures within the narrow circle of their 
light: — a tent, a circle of Tommies watching the 
cooking of their suppers, a motor ambulance, or 
a row of huge lorries parked for the night. 

The road through Hamel is blocked. A line 
of great motor tractors, each pulling a 9.2" how- 
itzer, stand motionless in the dark, while the 
drivers and artillerymen sit patiently smoking or 
sleeping. 

191 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Office?' 

Men move and breathe in the thick darkness. 
A match flares up, suddenly illuminating a face 
in cameo. Cigarettes glow and wane. 

Some one in the distance is cursing quietly, 
systematically, devoutly. It seems to be a case 
of mule. The curser, after beginning at the 
Adam and Eve period of the mule's donkey 
parentage, deals subsequently with the Cain and 
Judas Iscariot ancestors thereof, and has now 
arrived as far as the Middle Ages. 

We pick our way through the jam and even- 
tually reach the cause of both the congestion and 
the profanity. In the darkness the off mule of a 
gun-team has stepped over the edge of the solid 
road into the gutter, and is already buried almost 
up to its neck in mud, thus for a time halting, not 
only the gun to which it is harnessed, but all the 
other units of the battery behind. Drivers are 
endeavoring to extricate the creature, under the 
inspiration of their sergeant's artistic profanity. 

An irate transport officer is assuring the artil- 
lerymen that they will never save the animal, 
and continually demands the presence of a com- 
missioned officer of artillery, in order to inform 
him that his hyphenated animal is blocking the 
whole road. He urges that the mule be forth- 

192 



The Ancre 

with cut out of the traces, and immediately shot, 
to clear the way for traffic. 

Not waiting to see the end of the difficulty, 
we pass on and reaching our machine at last, 
sink gratefully into the soft cushions as it starts 
to carry us back towards our headquarters. 



198 



XII 

BRITISH INSIGNIA, EQUIPMENT AND DECORATIONS 

March 6th, 1917. In the British army, the 
officer is distinguished from the private soldier 
not merely by the insignia of his office but also 
by conspicuous differences in his uniform. 

The soldier wears a tunic with a collar which 
buttons up to his neck, and infantry breeches of 
the same material as the tunic. 

The officer's tunic, with which he wears a neck- 
tie, is cut low at the neck, like a sack or busi- 
ness coat. His breeches are of Bedford cord 
and are generally one shade lighter than the 
cloth of his coat. His most conspicuous mark of 
office, however, is the leather sword belt which 
passes over his right shoulder and slopes diago- 
nally across his chest to his waist at the right side, 
where it joins his Sam Browne belt. 

This diagonal leather belt has been adopted by 
the French, Belgian and other allied armies and 

194 



British Insignia Equipment and Decorations 

is to-day the universally accepted mark of the 
commissioned officer. It serves the same pur- 
pose as the single-horizontal braid which all 
American officers, irrespective of their rank, wear 
on the cuff. 

Belts are a recognized part of the uniform of 
the British army, and must always be worn when 
in public. A soldier who appears on the street 
without his belt is liable to discipline by the mili- 
tary police, while an officer who fails to wear his 
Sam Browne and sword belt would be regarded 
as not properly dressed. 

If American officers appear in any European 
city without these two belts, they will be con- 
sidered, by the average passer-by, to be private 
soldiers, so lacking in discipline, as to have omit- 
ted an essential part of their uniform. 

The British army dress regulations require 
every officer to carry a cane and gloves whenever 
he is out of doors, and most French or American 
officers serving with the British find it best to 
adopt this custom. 

The British officer's uniform is much more 
serviceable than the one designed for the United 
States soldiers. The low cut tunic, worn with 
the soft khaki collar and necktie, is not only more 

195 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

comfortable than the high stiff collar of the 
American coat, but also has a much more neat 
and soldierly appearance, while its big bellows 
pockets are like small forage sacks, in which 
quantities of books, maps or food may easily be 
carried. 

In the evening, either at home in England or 
in a regimental mess at the front, it is customary 
for the British officer to change his breeches and 
boots, replacing them by trousers, called "slacks," 
made of the same material as his tunic. 

It is contrary to regulations for any British 
officer to use a camera at the front. He is not 
even allowed to have one in his possession while 
in France, and would get into very serious 
trouble if one were to be found in his luggage. 
Official photographers, experts in their line, take 
all the photographs which are obtained in the 
battle zone. Their work is used not only for 
press illustrations, but for general staff records. 
All official photographs are examined by the Gen- 
eral Staff and any which might convey valuable 
information to the Germans are temporarily held 
up. This system prevents any unauthorized 
photographs from leaving the British front. 

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British Insignia Equipment and Decorations 

In the new British armies, any private with 
sufficient ability and training has a chance to be- 
come an officer, but one of the most serious prob- 
lems of the war has been to find a sufficient num- 
ber of men capable of assuming the responsibility 
of commanding troops. For more than two 
years, the demand has far exceeded the supply. 
It is therefore necessary to husband the energy 
of officers and save then time for important work. 

Every officer in the British army has, there- 
fore, a soldier servant, familiarly known as a 
batman, who takes care of his clothes and quar- 
ters. This is not due to any survival of the idea 
that an officer is entitled to luxury and pamper- 
ing, but is a most essential bit of efficiency, ap- 
plied according to the simplest rules of cost 
analysis. 

An officer is a highly trained specialist to 
whom the state pays a salary of fifteen hundred 
dollars a year and upwards. He is also directly 
responsible for the lives and welfare of a large 
number of his fellow countrymen. 

The private is paid by the state about a tenth 
of what an officer receives and experience shows 
that the private, who lacks the ambition or the 
ability to become an officer, is in war worth to 

197 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

the state less than one twentieth as much as an 
officer. 

A soldier must spend a considerable part of 
his time taking care of his own belongings, equip- 
ment and billet. This is, however, unskilled la- 
bor which any Tommy can perform just as well 
as an officer. Hence it would evidently be 
wasteful to allow a highly paid officer to devote 
valuable time to work which a private could do 
as satisfactorily. For this reason, it is the cus- 
tom to assign to each officer an attendant soldier 
who, by caring for the needs of his superior, en- 
ables the latter to devote all his efforts to execu- 
tive duties in training and supervising the men 
he commands. 

Over and above all other decorations which 
may be won by the British in war-time stands 
preeminent the Victoria Cross. It may be con- 
ferred upon any soldier or sailor wearing His 
Majesty's uniform, irrespective of rank or of 
length of service. For it, both officers and men 
are equally eligible, and it may be won by the 
humble private as well as by the highest general. 
It must, however, be earned by a specific act of 
conspicuous bravery, achieved while in the face 

198 



British Insignia Equipment and Decorations 

of the enemy ; which act must have been observed 
and attested to by at least two witnesses. It 
cannot be won by merely performing one's duty, 
however great may have been the risk. One 
must transcend anything which could possi- 
bly be interpreted as simple duty. Therefore 
the Victoria Cross cannot be given for a deed 
which a soldier has been ordered to do; it can 
only be won by an act which surpasses the de- 
mand of duty and which was undertaken by the 
winner on his own initiative. 

Although Great Britain has to-day something 
like five million soldiers and sailors in active serv- 
ice, and although the war has lasted nearly three 
years, only a few hundred Victoria Crosses have 
so far been awarded. It is therefore the most 
precious and hardest-to-win decoration in the 
world. In all my service, I never actually saw 
but one man who wore the ribbon of the V. C. 

There are other orders which may be won for 
lesser acts of bravery or for performing one's 
duty effectively and courageously in the face of 
great danger. For the officers there is the Dis- 
tinguished Service Order and the Military 
Cross; for the enlisted men the Distinguished 
Conduct Medal and the Military Medal 

199 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

The D. S. O. is preeminently the decoration 
which marks the officer who performs his profes- 
sional duties with exceptional efficiency and brav- 
ery. To wear the D. S. O. is to be recognized as 
a military leader of pronounced ability ; one who 
has performed his whole duty steadily, coura- 
geously and intelligently under all circumstances. 
It may be won by any commissioned officer. 

The Military Cross is generally awarded for 
bravery in the personal leading of troops in bat- 
tle, or for the leading of forlorn hopes. It is 
limited to the ranks of captains, lieutenants and 
warrant officers, the latter is the British equiva- 
lent for the American first sergeants. 

The D. C. M. and the Military Medals are 
given to privates and non-commissioned officers 
for conspicuous gallantry in the performance of 
their duty. The former decoration is less often 
conf erred than the latter. 

On receiving his commission, every British 
officer is granted an outfit allowance of £50 
which is in addition to his monthly pay. This 
allowance is given only once during his life-time, 
on the date of his first commission, since subse- 

200 



British Insignia Equipment and Decorations 

quent promotions do not alter the nature of his 
uniform or kit. 

This allowance is a great boon to the newly 
appointed officer who, unless he had independent 
means, might be hard put to find the sum neces- 
sary for his immediate outlay. 

£50 is not quite sufficient for all the require- 
ments, but it covers such a large percentage of 
what is necessary, that an officer can generally 
make up the remainder from his first two or 
three months' pay. 

An officer going on active duty is required to 
have a complete field kit, most of the items of 
which are specified in the army regulations, al- 
though some latitude of choice is allowed in the 
material and make. 

Before proceeding with the purchase of my 
own outfit, I spent several days in discussing the 
subject with veteran British officers and in com- 
piling a list from their advice. Since the British 
army has probably had more experience in cam- 
paigning, under every condition of climate and 
weather, than any other army in the world, this 
list, compiled from the experience of seasoned 
British officers, seems worth setting down. 

201 , 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

Clothing £ s d 

2 khaki whipcord tunics at 6/6/0 12/12/° 

1 pair khaki whipcord slacks (trousers) .... 2/ 5/0 

2 pair drab Bedford cord riding breeches at 

4/10/0 9/0/0 

4 khaki cotton shirts at 5/0 1/ 0/0 

4 khaki flannel shirts at 7/6 . . 1/10/0 

8 khaki collars at 0/6 4/0 

2 khaki service neckties at 2/6 5/0 

1 Service cap with regimental badge 17/6 

1 knitted woolen cap comforter 2/9 

1 waterproof trench coat with one oiled silk 

lining and one fleece lining 6/ 6/0 

1 pair heavy marching shoes (leather) .... 3/ 3/0 

1 pair knee length trench boots (leather) ... 4/ 4/0 
1 pair knee length riding boots (leather, 

laced over the instep) . ., 4/ 4/0 

12 pairs woolen socks , 1/ 1/0 

1 pair canvas shoes ;. . . 4/0 

1 Sam Browne and sword belt 2/ 2/0 

1 cane . . 2/0 

1 cardigan jacket . 16/0 

1 pair puttees (leather) 3/ 3/0 

12 khaki handkerchiefs 5/0 

1 Wolseley valise 3/5/9 

2 suits heavy underwear at 18/0 1/16/0 

4 suits summer underwear at 4/0 16/0 

Pajamas, towels, underwear, etc -.. . . 

60/ 0/0 
202 



British Insignia Equipment and Decorations 

Equipment 

1 6 diameter, large aperture, sterioo prism 

binocular (preferably Ross or Zeiss) ... 9/ 9/0 

1 haversack 15/0 

1 web carrier for trench coat 7/6 

1 wrist watch with illuminated dial, unbreak- 
able crystal and waterproof case 3/ 3/0 

1 pair spurs 13/6 

1 canteen water bottle 17/9 

1 clasp knife 6/0 

1 whistle .. 2/0 

1 cup 1/0 

1 pistol . 3/0/0 



18/14/9 



Kit 

War Office Kit B, containing, 

folding bedstead, 

folding chair, 

folding bath tub, 

ground sheet, 

folding bucket (canvas) 

kapok pillow 4/ 10 / 

folding candle lantern • 8/0 

housewife 8/0 

holdall, containing, 

knife, 

fork, 

spoon, 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

brushes, 

comb, 

razor, 

mirror, 

soaps, etc. 

1 Jaeger sleeping-bag 4/ 0/0 

1 mattress 15/0 

1 big kit bag with padlock and key 1/ 5/0 

11/ 6/0 



204 



XIII 

THE FALL OF BAPATJME 

Saturday, March 17, 1917. This morning the 
city of Bapaume was captured from the Ger- 
mans by our troops, who at about ten o'clock 
forced an entrance through a dry moat of the old 
fortifications, built by Vauban during the reign 
of Louis XIV. 

Bapaume is the first French city retaken from 
the German invader by British troops ; one feels 
that this event definitely marks the passing of the 
initiative from the Teutons to the Allies, and 
that it is the beginning of the concluding stage 
of the present war, which could not be vigorously 
pushed until the organization and training of the 
new British armies was completed. 

By a most extraordinary piece of good fortune, 
my duties took me into Bapaume this mid-day, 
upon the very heels of the victorious British in- 
fantry. 

The roads leading into the city had been so 
205 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

damaged by shell-fire as to make it impossible for 
our automobile to approach the town, therefore, 
in company with another officer, I trudged on 
foot across the open country. Our engineers 
will in short order remake the wrecked roads, 
but in the meanwhile it was necessary for us to 
plod several miles across fields, rendered so 
muddy by the winter rains that at each step we 
sank in ankle-deep, and our feet soon became 
the centers of great balls of sticky mud. 

On our way, we passed through the famous 
Delville Wood, aptly called the Devil's Wood by 
the Tommies who there participated in the dread- 
ful battle. Across the fields beyond, the shallow 
graves made after last autumn's desperate fight- 
ing are now giving up their mummied dead. It 
was on these costly battlefields that the founda- 
tion of the present victorious advance was laid 
down. 

We tramped across muddy uplands to the 
western edge of the village of Le Transloy, which 
is situated on the right-hand end of Bapaume 
ridge and was held by the Germans until early 
this morning. From there, we turned sharply to 
the left and marched parallel to the German lines, 
under the shelter of the inner slope of the ridge, 

206 



The Fall of Bapaume 

until we reached the city which crowns it and 
from which it takes its name. 

During the last mile we were within the range 
of German artillery which was "searching" the 
slope with indirect fire. Their shells skimmed 
over the crest of the ridge to explode along the 
inner slope on which we walked. Big howitzers 
and light field-guns were both in action, the for- 
mer firing high explosive shells, which burst on 
the ground with a terrific crash, throwing far and 
wide a shower of earth, and giving out large 
quantities of jet black smoke, while the field- 
guns fired shrapnel which explode in the air with 
a staccato bang, and make pretty little puffs of 
fleecy white smoke. One high explosive shell 
burst within twenty-five yards of my companion 
without touching him, while salvos of shrapnel 
exploded overhead near enough for us to hear 
the buzzing hum of their bullets. 

When we reached Bapaume, several companies 
of Anzac infantry had already pushed through 
the town and were thinly holding a line upon the 
farther side. The fitful — rat — tat — tat — of ma- 
chine guns showed that desultory street fighting 
was, in certain quarters of the city, still in prog- 
ress. Ten or fifteen big German shells each 

207 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

minute crashed into the town, while the shells of 
our own artillery, stationed miles in the rear, 
whistled high overhead on their way to those dis- 
tant roads, which our aeroplanes indicated were 
crowded by the retreating enemy. 

Before abandoning the city, the Germans had, 
with characteristic Teuton thoroughness, plun- 
dered every house. When all things movable 
had been carted away, they systematically set fire 
to the city at numerous points. As we passed 
through the streets, the flaming roofs, falling 
walls, smoking and charred houses, combined 
with the sight of the dead lying in the gutters 
made a terrible and awe-inspiring spectacle. 
To-night, the place is a gutted and blackened 
shell; it is worse than valueless, for its tottering, 
battered walls must be completely razed before 
the patient French townspeople can safely begin 
to rebuild their homes. 

I most earnestly wish that a few of our sincere, 
emotional pacifists in America could have stood 
beside me to-day to witness the desolation of a 
city wantonly set in flames. There was a certain 
convincing element about the spectacle which 
would, I think, have made it difficult for them to 
voice their customary glib advocacy of unsup- 

208 



The Fall of Bapaume 

ported arbitration and unprotected treaties as the 
best means of meeting the German adaptation of 
the doctrine that ' 'Might is Right." 

Personally I find it a relief to be distant from 
the wordiness which has been so prevalent in our 
American motherland during the last two years, 
and to be one of that minority of some thirty 
thousand Americans who, according to the latest 
tabulations, are voicing their protest by their 
presence in the Canadian, Australian and Eng- 
lish armies. I am inclined to think that most of 
the members of that minority consider the chlo- 
rine gas of the Boche soldier less noxious than 
the "hot air" of his unconscious collaborators in 
America. , 

During the six months that I have been in Eu- 
rope, I have received mail from America on every 
in-coming mail-carrying steamer, and have sent 
letters to America on every out-going one; dur- 
ing all that time none of my letters to America 
have been lost and only one letter from America 
to me was sunk by submarine, which was with the 
S. S. JLaconia, on February 22nd. This is a com- 
plete refutation of the German boasts of the air- 
tight effectiveness of their submarine blockade. 

209 



XIV 

THE UNKNOWN HERO 

March 17th, 1917. On our return from Ba- 
paume, we pass through the little hamlet of Til- 
loy. It has been entirely wrecked by the artil- 
lery fire of the Germans, who are still shelling it 
in a desultory way — a big shell falling here and 
there every minute or two. 

In all the village neither wall, nor fence, nor 
tree still stands. Its site is to-day merely a 
stretch of muddy ground, strewn with bits of 
brick and splinters of wood. As one skirts the 
crater-lips and clambers over debris, in what was 
once its main street, one can look straight out in 
all directions across an open country. 

In such destructive bombardments, the effect 
of the shell fire is often most bizarre. In 
each shell-swept battered village, one sees new 
manifestations of its vagaries, and its omissions 
of destruction are often more curious than its 
commissions. For instance, one sees a church 
which has been knocked flat, hardly a stone re- 

210 



The Unknown Hero 

maining upon another, while at the same time the 
altar, which it has sheltered, stands unscathed 
above the surrounding debris; or one watches a 
shell which bursts close to a group of soldiers, 
who escape uninjured while several others, stand- 
ing at a distance, are all killed. 

I recently saw a howitzer projectile burst be- 
side a wagon to which were harnessed three teams 
of horses and, without wounding man or beast, 
cut through all the traces, so that three separate 
pairs of horses pranced about the road uninjured. 

In some cases, every house in a town is de- 
stroyed save one, which stands absolutely un- 
touched amid the surrounding ruins. Some- 
thing of this sort has happened in the hamlet, 
through which I pass to-day, for in all the place 
only one object, a baby's wicker cradle, has es- 
caped destruction; this stands inexplicably upon 
the very edge of a shell-hole in the center of the 
main street; nothing could appear more prepos- 
terously and ridiculously out of place. 

But tragedy follows hard upon this comedy, 
for fifty yards beyond, I come upon a spot where, 
not more than a quarter of an hour before, a shell, 
passing by the charmed cradle, had burst upon 
the road to kill a British soldier boy. 

211 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

I pause a moment to puzzle out the sequence 
of events. An infantry pack stands in the high- 
way. Against the pack leans a rifle, whose 
speckless, shining barrel bears sterling testimony 
to the soldierly qualities of its late owner. Upon 
the hard and pitted surface of the highway, be- 
side the pack and rifle, lies a great pool of life- 
blood, still fresh and bright scarlet in color. 

Across the gutter, at a distance of four or five 
paces from where I stand, is a shallow new- 
made grave. The lumps of fresh earth upon its 
surface have not yet commenced to dry and crum- 
ble into grains, while on it the plain print of a 
hand and the mark of a final spade-pat still 
show distinct and unobliterated. The shallow 
upstanding mound even seems to silhouette the 
body beneath. A broken fragment of a board, 
blown from the mantelpiece of a once peaceful 
home-hearth, has been hurriedly whittled into 
some semblance of a rude headboard; rough 
characters are printed upon it in pencil. I 
cross the ditch and stoop to read: 

HERE LIES AN 

UNKNOWN HERO 

OF THE 

Australian Corps 
212 



The Unknown Hero 

One can visualize the puzzled face of the 
rough soldier-sexton as he wrote "here lies" and 
then paused for one perplexed moment in un- 
profane profanity — to seek for some proof of 
identity which had so evidently been lacking — be- 
fore adding the epitaph "An Unknown Hero." 

As I start on my way again, I ponder upon 
the strange paradoxes and curious combinations 
which this great war has brought about. Here 
am I, from one far-off country, rendering silent 
homage to the unknown dead young soldier, who 
had come from a land still farther away. I feel 
an earnest gratitude to the other passing soldier 
who, not satisfied to cover the shattered body 
with a blanket of mother-earth, had in rude epi- 
taph recorded his own tribute to one, who had 
just rendered up his life for our common cause. 

The three of us had never stood face to face, 
nor heard the voice, nor known the name one of 
the other, yet were comrades, one in sympathy 
and one in aim. 

The dead boy is a type of the ten million sol- 
diers of Democracy who have so completely con- 
secrated themselves to the great cause that, in 
order best to serve that cause, they gladly sacri- 
fice, for the time being, the very personal liberty 

213 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

for which they are fighting. They cheerfully 
submerge their ego, in order that the German sys- 
tem of the permanent subordination of the indi- 
vidual may not be forcibly extended over all na- 
tions, and that the Liberty won through long 
ages of struggle against Tyranny might not alto- 
gether perish from the earth. 

The Unknown Hero, resting beside the up- 
torn road of the shattered village, had voyaged 
ten thousand miles from his homeland to do his 
bit in this present great struggle, to safeguard the 
democratic ideals of his own race against the 
democracy-destroying and liberty-suppressing 
system of that other race, now known as the 
enemy. With ten million others, moved by simi- 
lar ideals, he had been content to become so com- 
pletely a mere anonymous cog in the great mili- 
tary machine, that when a chance shell finally 
struck him down, he was so hurriedly buried by a 
fellow cog that his body was laid at rest, his 
blanket of earth thrown over him, and his name- 
less epitaph inscribed before his life-blood had 
time to congeal upon the frozen winter road of 
that obscure French village. 



214 



XV 

SECOND-LIEUTENANT JOHN MASEFIELD 

Sunday, March 18th. With Major L. and 
Second-Lieutenant John Masefleld, I this morn- 
ing visited two camps of German prisoners of 
war. At one of them, which is situated in the 
midst of a forest, the prisoners run a large saw 
mill, cutting the timber in the surrounding woods. 

When we reached the gate of the encampment, 
we were met by the senior German non-commis- 
sioned officer, a Feldwebel, who clicked his heels 
together and accorded us a most punctilious sa- 
lute. This man was one of the most spick-and- 
span individuals I have ever laid eyes on. Sub- 
sequent to his capture, he sent to Germany for 
his Prussian blue dress tunic and cap, and these 
he was now wearing, looking as though he were 
turned out for dress parade. 

The camp is commanded by a Scotch captain, 
for whom the German soldiers have a keen affec- 
tion. They seem quite happy and contented in 

215 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

spite of the fact, that being captured has not re- 
lieved them from working under the orders and 
supervision of their own non-commissioned offi- 
cers. 

The saw mill supplies an immense quantity 
of lumber of all description to the Allied armies. 
It is run so economically that it has paid for its 
own machinery and for the standing timber. It 
also houses and feeds the German prisoners, gives 
them a small wage, and produces finished lumber 
for less than it can be bought in Scandinavia. 

The Prussian non-commissioned officers keep 
the prisoners under the strictest discipline, and 
insist on their working hard and maintaining an 
exemplary behavior. 

Major L. is accustomed to inspect the camp 
from time to time and already knew the Feldwe- 
bel. He said to him : "Feldwebel, we took Ba- 
paume and Peronne yesterday." The German, 
who doubtless considered this to be either a joke 
or a lie, after the most approved German official 
pattern, nevertheless managed to conceal his in- 
credulity under a mask-like expression, which 
would have done credit to an expert poker-player, 
and merely said respectfully, "That is very in- 
teresting, sir." 

216 



Second-Lieutenant John Masefield 

It being Sunday the prisoners were resting in 
their comfortable huts or working in little flower 
gardens in the front yards of their dwellings. 
The Scotch commander told the Feldwebel to 
show us the camp and the unter-offizier stepped 
out briskly with evident and cheerful pride. 

He took us through a number of the sleep- 
ing huts, into the kitchen, the carpenters' shop, 
the boot-maker's shop, and the tool-maker's 
workroom, preceding us into each billet and bel- 
lowing "Aclntung" at which the German privates 
would leap to their feet as if some one had stuck 
pins in them, and stand rigidly at attention. 

We had lunch at the mess of some officers of 
the Australian corps, whose unit is stationed far 
behind the lines. They were very hospitable and 
at luncheon related some amusing tales of their 
own troops and their idiosyncrasies. 

In that dim past, "the early months of the 
war," the Australians were notoriously careless 
about saluting officers, particularly if the officers 
belonged to other organizations. Most of the 
stories we heard at luncheon dealt with this sub- 
ject or with similar informalities. 

We learned of the tradition that while the An- 
217 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

zac corps was in Cairo, a fight occurred between 
several Australian privates and a number of 
brigadier-generals. The story goes that at first 
youth with its courage and strength were suc- 
cessful, but that eventually superior numbers 
counted and the generals triumphed. 

It was further recounted that, on one occasion, 
a huge Australian private passed a young Brit- 
ish captain without saluting. The captain, very 
correctly, stopped him and asked why he had 
omitted the usual formality, whereupon the big 
Australian laid a hand on the officer's shoulder 
and said : "Young man, go home to your mother 
and tell her that you have looked upon a real 
soldier!" 

On another occasion, an Australian saw a cer- 
tain major-general approaching, whom he passed 
without saluting; when the general called him 
back and asked for an explanation, the Austra- 
lian replied: "I did not see that you were an 
officer, sir"; whereupon the general touched his 
shoulder strap and said: "What does this in- 
signia mean?" The Australian studied it closely 
and then looking the general straight in the eye 
said: "That means that you are a second-lieu- 
tenant in the machine-gun corps." 

218 



Second-Lieutenant John Masefield 

It is necessary to explain, that the insignia of 
a second-lieutenant in the British army is one 
star worn upon the shoulder strap. Below this 
may be worn the insignia of the corps to which 
he belongs. Thus a second-lieutenant in the 
machine-gun corps wears below the star two 
crossed machine-guns. 

The mark of a major-general is a gold baton 
and a gold sabre crossed, surmounted by a sin- 
gle gold star. These two are just enough alike, 
to give any one, who wished to mistake one for 
the other, a reasonable excuse for doing so. 

I am happy to say that Second-Lieutenant 
John Masefield is at present employed on staff 
work of a sort which is not exceedingly danger- 
ous. 

Some one has said of him that he was sin- 
gularly like a very wise child, and this is a de- 
scription which I cannot hope to improve upon. 

Late in the afternoon we approached Amiens, 
and in the distance could see its exquisite ca- 
thedral, standing high above the surrounding 
roofs of the city, and silhouetted against the soft 
sun-set sky. The distant mists of evening, ris- 
ing from the ground, hid its base so that the 

219 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

cathedral seemed without foundation, a thing 
of ethereal beauty floating in the atmosphere. 
Its delicate spire, clear-cut against the glowing 
sky, lifted itself from the vaulted crossing and 
pointed high to heaven. 

We felt in our hearts a prayer of thankfulness 
that, during their occupation of the city, the Ger- 
mans had been unable to find any excuse for de- 
stroying it. 

As the car sped forward, we watched the ca- 
thedral in silence for several kilometres, then 
Masefield said, "To think that it was once rough 
stone lying in the fields !" 



XVI 

FRAGMENTS 

Saturday, March 24th. Yesterday Captain 
F. and myself accompanied a party of five Chi^ 
nese officers from the Chinese Embassy in Lon- 
don, on a tour of inspection through the city of 
Ypres, which the Germans have heavily shelled 
every day for twenty-eight months. In the 
whole place there is not one house unwrecked, 
and of the famous old Cloth Hall, dating from 
the Middle Ages, nothing remains but the stump 
of the tower and one tottering, chimney-like iso- 
lated bit of wall. 

I took a great fancy to the Chinese officers. 
They were not only thorough gentlemen with ex- 
cellent manners, but were also good sports, show- 
ing themselves quite fearless of danger. 

In Ypres a regulation was in force that no au- 
tomobiles should cross the Grande Place in front 
of the Cloth Hall, because it was under observa- 

221 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

tion, probably from Messines Ridge, and was 
very frequently shelled, particularly whenever 
traffic tried to cross it. 

A Military Traffic policeman was stationed in 
the middle of the Place to see that the regulation 
was enforced. Not knowing of this prohibition, 
and wishing to show our guests all the sights, we 
drove up to the Place, and halted at the head of a 
side street, preparatory to scooting across the 
open at a favorable moment. 

Several shells burst in the Place and then there 
seemed to be a lull, of which we took advantage ; 
our driver stepped on the throttle, and we started 
across, pointing out the ruins of the Cloth Hall 
as we went. Part way over, we were halted by 
the traffic policeman who questioned us and took 
our numbers as violators of the traffic regulations. 

Several German shells arrived during the dis- 
cussion, which our Chinese guests seemed to con- 
sider as an interesting experience. 

Having become "fed-up" with work and writ- 
ing, and feeling a bit "stale," I decided to give 
myself a Saturday's half-holiday. I borrowed 
the Colonel's very excellent saddle-horse, and 
rode across country over beautiful uplands and 
through fields and woods to a neighboring head- 



Fragments 

quarters, five or six miles away, to have luncheon 
with Captain R., D. S. O. 

After luncheon we went for a long walk, talk- 
ing at some length about architecture, in which 
we were both interested in the long-ago times of 
peace. We visited the ancient church of Mai- 
sonelle, which was the headquarters of Henry V 
during the Battle of Agincourt. 

Afterwards I rode back to headquarters, and 
as I cantered across the open uplands the steady 
rumble of a heavy cannonade was borne on an 
east wind from the direction of Arras and could 
be heard with great distinctness. 

After dinner this evening, as we were sitting 
about reading and smoking in the officers' mess, 
one of the officers (name deleted by censor), 
who had served in the Indian Civil Service and 
who had known many of the officers of the "old 
army," was reading through the casualty list, 
printed in a three-days' -old copy of the "London 
Times." He looked up with that whimsical 
smile, which is so characteristic of the British 
sportsman when dealing with serious subjects, 
and said, "There are one hundred and sixty- 
eight officers in this casualty list and I don't 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

know a single one of them" ; then, after a slight 
pause, — "During the first battle of Ypres, I 
used to know of, or be personally acquainted with 
at least, twenty or thirty out of each day's list; 
shows how the 'old army' has passed away!" 

At midnight, as I walked from the chateau 
to my billet, the clear, cold, starry sky in the 
east was lit by the unceasing, constant flickering 
of distant guns. 

Recently I met the inventor of the now famous 
Nissen hut. He is attached to the engineering 
stafT of the G. H. Q. and is one of the many 
competent officers, who were civilians before the 
present war, but who in answer to the emergency 
succeeded in converting themselves into good 
soldiers. In private life, he is well-known as a 
mining engineer and as the inventor of important 
mining machinery, most notably the Nissen stamp 
mill for crushing ores. 

Like so many great inventions, his hut is so 
simple that one wonders why it was not thought 
of long ago. Twenty-seven thousand of the huts 
are now in use, each with a maximum capacity 
of forty-five men and a normal one of thirty. 





'HE NlSSON Hi 

Major Nisson, the inventor, is the officer in the center of the 
lower photograph. 



Fragments 

More than eight hundred thousand allied soldiers, 
who during the two previous winters had lived and 
slept in the rain or in muddy dugouts, spent this 
last winter, warm and comfortable, in the Nissen 
huts, and an additional twenty-five thousand of 
these shelters are at present under construction. 

On a scale of peace-prices, the huts can be 
built for $150 each; even under war-prices they 
cost only about $250. They are semi-cylindrical 
in shape, and semi-circular in cross sections, the 
radius of the semi-circle being about eight feet. 
This makes the hut eight feet at the highest point, 
and sixteen feet in width along the floor. The 
standard size is about forty-five feet in length. 
The hut has a corrugated-iron roof, with a 
wooden lining inside, and is held up by five arch- 
like metal braces. An air space of some five 
inches is left between the metal roof and the 
wooden lining, which acts as an insulator ; so that 
in winter the cold is excluded and in summer 
the heat is kept out. 

The ends of the hut are closed by a double par- 
tition of boards; in one end are two windows 
and in the other a door. Each hut is furnished 
with a stove capable of burning either coal or 
wood. The whole affair can, in a very short time, 

225 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

be taken down and loaded on a single motor 
truck; it is easily transported and can quickly 
be set up again in a new location. 

A report from a German Secret Service Agent 
in the United States recently came into the hands 
of the British Intelligence Department which 
stated that "the Americans are difficult people to 
argue with. For instance, if you call one of them 
a liar, he knocks you down with his clenched fist, 
instead of discussing the matter calmly, as any 
other civilized person would." 

Item from the "London Times" 

A small parcel recently dispatched to the Ger- 
man General von Biilow, was accompanied by the 
following letter: "The Colonel and officers of 
the 9th French Dragoon, whose houses were 
sacked by your troops, make it a duty to return 
the jewelry and other trinkets found on the body 
of your son, Lieutenant von Biilow, killed before 
Peronne." 

I recently heard a most significant pronuncio- 
mento on the essential qualities of leadership in 
army officers, as laid down by a British military 
authority. 



Fragments 

He said, "Early in the war, the Tommies some- 
times resented the fact that their officers were 
almost invariably chosen from the British aris- 
tocracy, and that the enlisted men had practically 
no chance of promotion ; at present the Tommies 
object to having any one but a gentleman in com- 
mand over them, for they too have learned the 
lesson that the gift of leadership is born with a 
man and is usually synonymous with good birth, 
and that if one lacks the gift of command, it can- 
not be acquired. 

"We who analyze things which the Tommy 
only crudely senses, have discovered that the abil- 
ity to lead is not found most clearly demonstrated 
in the classes who carry titles, nor in those who 
possess great wealth, not even, as you in America 
seem to think, among the classes who are best 
educated, but is preeminently found among men 
of family, — in other words in men who have 
behind them many generations who have exer- 
cised authority. 

"Many of our noble families and our rich fam- 
ilies were only a few generations back of humble 
or ignoble origin, but England possesses thou- 
sands of men, some rich, some poor, some titled, 
some commoners, who can trace a long line of 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

honorable ascent back through many sturdy 
generations of domineering Englishmen, and 
from this class we are obtaining our best officers, 
— men in whom the habit of self-control and of 
authority over others have been deepened gen- 
eration after generation. 

"Ethnologists would probably trace in this 
class the strain of Nordic blood from which nearly 
all famous soldiers, sailors, explorers and pio- 
neers have developed throughout ages which pre- 
dates historic records." 

As I listened to him I was reminded of the 
methods used by an English nurse, who on being 
reproved for not disciplining her young Ameri- 
can charge for some naughtiness that deserved 
punishment, replied, "In England we are per- 
mitted to punish the girls but we are not allowed 
to discipline the boys. It only breaks their 
spirit and we want them to be masterful." 

The Tommies at the front meet every situation 
with dry humor which is for the most part spon- 
taneous and sincere, but even under exceptionally 
trying circumstances this sportsman-like pose is 
still courageously maintained. 

The enemy is invariably referred to derisively 
828 



Fragments 

as "Heinie" and "Fritz." The anglicised mean- 
ings of these two words being synonymous and 
standing as a generic term for Germans. A 
battle or bombardment is invariably referred to 
in terms borrowed from the German, as "hate" 
or "strafe" and the verb to "strafe" has already 
become a permanent part of the English lan- 
guage. 

One hears, for instance, such tales as the fol- 
lowing: "The moon came out from behind the 
cloud and the sentries saw Heinie coming across 
no-man's-land shoulder to shoulder. The word 
was passed to the officer on duty in the trench, 
and he suppressed all fire at long range, being 
determined to strafe Fritz at close quarters, and 
every one accordingly waited until Heinie reached 
our wire, before turning loose upon him a really 
concentrated 'hate' from the machine-guns." 

The German "Hymn of Hate" also bids fair to 
become one of England's national songs, just as 
derisive "Yankee Doodle," first composed and 
played by the musicians of British troops early 
in the American devolution, was later, on the oc- 
casion of their final surrender at York Town, 
played "at them" by the bands of the Continental 
Army and subsequently became one of Ameri- 

229 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

ca's national songs, having to-day a popularity 
rivalled only by that of "Dixie." 

It is truly an extraordinary sight to see some 
English county regiment on the march singing 
the "Hymn of Hate" at the top of their lungs, 
and at the chorus to hear some clear tenor voice 
call out " 'oo do we 'ite?" and then the whole bat- 
talion's reply in a voice of thunder — "England!" 

Although Jan Smuts was one of the most suc- 
cessful Boer generals in the South African War, 
and although he is to-day a British Lieutenant- 
General, he is even more famous as an orator 
and statesman than as a soldier. Many people 
place him in the same preeminent class with 
Haig, Lloyd George and Northcliffe, and there 
are few who would not at least admit that 
he shares with Lord Milner the honor of being 
the Premier's most able political supporter in the 
government of Great Britain. 

Nothing could more strongly typify the spirit 
of the splendid Empire than the fact that, to-day, 
these two men are named together as co-workers ; 
for only fifteen years ago they were bitter ene- 
mies, both racially and nationally. 

The Boer War was then drawing to a close; 
230 



Fragments 

Smuts was a conquered general and one of the 
principal political leaders of his beaten people, 
while Lord Milner was the member of the vic- 
torious nation, who had been especially appointed 
for the task of reconstructing South Africa. 

He not only reconstructed the country politi- 
cally, but also physically, for he was responsible 
for the rebuilding of Boer farm houses and for 
restocking the country with cattle and horses to 
replace those destroyed during the conflict. So 
well and fairly did he accomplish this task, that 
the Boers concluded that they were actually safer 
and better governed as members of the British 
Empire, than they could ever be if they governed 
themselves as a small independent state. In 
consequence, only thirteen years later, when the 
great European war broke out, the South Afri- 
can Nation proved itself one of Britain's most 
loyal and devoted colonies. 

Botha, her greatest soldier, occupied himself 
with the conquest of Germany's African posses- 
sions ; while Smuts, her most eminent statesman, 
came to London to sit beside Lord Milner in the 
Imperial War Cabinet, and to contest with him 
the honor of being its most influential member. 
Could there be a more brilliant contrast than this 

231 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

to Germany's wretched record in Alsace-Lor- 
raine ! 

In meeting Lieutenant-General Smuts in his 
British uniform, one is immediately struck by the 
fact that his breast is totally undecorated by cam- 
paign ribbons, several long rows of which adorn 
the average British general officer. The ex- 
planation is, of course, that in all his previous 
campaigns, Smuts fought as an enemy not as an 
ally of Great Britain. 

In the present war, the tendency has constantly 
been towards the use of munitions which wound 
many men rather than kill a few. It is better, 
from a tactical point of view, to wound than to 
kill. 

The larger the bursting charge in a given shell, 
the greater will be the number of fragments into 
which it will fly, and consequently the smaller 
will be each fragment. If the charge is too big, 
the shell is torn into dust, which has little damag- 
ing effect. 

On the other hand, if the bursting charge is 
small, the shell breaks into a few big splinters, 
which wreck and tear to pieces anything they 
hit. 

232 



Fragments 

Thus, strange to say, within certain limits, a 
small bursting charge gives a shell more smash- 
ing effect than a large one. 

The happy medium has long been the subject 
of discussion among military men, one part claim- 
ing that it is better to use a small bursting charge, 
because the resulting larger fragments are al- 
most certain to kill every man they strike; the 
other maintaining that it is more advantageous 
to use a heavier charge, since it makes more 
fragments and will hit two or three times as 
many men, even though these smaller fragments 
are less often fatal. 

At present, a relatively large bursting charge 
is employed, for while the smaller particles which 
result are not as likely to kill instantly, each one 
of them is large enough to wound a man suf- 
ficiently to render him incapable of further par- 
ticipation in the battle. 

A dead man is no more definitely a tactical loss 
than a wounded one, while the latter becomes a 
liability to the army to which he belongs, for 
men and vehicles, which might otherwise be avail- 
able for fighting, must be detailed to care for him. 

Thus a dead man constitutes a loss of one ef- 
fective from the firing line, while a wounded one 

233 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

subtracts more than one. When the wounded 
accumulate in large numbers, they also clog the 
channels of communication towards the rear, and 
interfere with the flow of reenforcements, sup- 
plies and ammunition needed on the firing line. 

Every wounded man must, if possible, be saved, 
not merely from motives of mercy, but also from 
the fact that he is strategically a valuable asset to 
his nation. Yet to carry away and give medical 
attention to thousands of men struck down in 
battle, requires so many attendants, that it de- 
cidedly reduces the manpower available for active 
military duty. 

In any great battle, the large number of 
wounded soldiers seriously retard and clog the 
movements of the conflicting forces, but this is 
more especially true of the victorious army, for 
as it advances and captures the terrain recently 
in possession of the enemy, it has to care not only 
for its own wounded but also for the wounded of 
the retreating army. 

The plan to wound a large number of the 
enemy, rather than to kill a few has been achieved 
in other ways besides that of employing rela- 
tively high charges in shells. Some of the com- 
batants have, for instance, recently reduced the 

234 



Fragments 

calibre of the bullets which they use in their ma- 
chine guns. This accomplishes the double pur- 
pose of increasing the number of men wounded, 
and also of reducing the total weight of the muni- 
tions which must be carried to the front — an ele- 
ment on which the result of more than one battle 
has turned. 

In other words, by using a smaller size bullet 
in machine guns, the same weight of munitions 
will put out of action many more men than would 
be hit when a large calibre is used, although the 
percentage of deaths will be much lower. 



To become flustered by danger is called by 
the Tommies "being windy" or "getting the wind 
up." 

Having myself been under fire on thirty or 
forty different occasions, I have found that "get- 
ting the wind up" does not necessarily bear any 
relation to the actual danger. A man may on 
one occasion be undisturbed by a really serious 
situation, and yet at another time "be windy" on 
very small provocation. 

It is the unexpected and unknown which is 
most terrifying. A great danger which can be 

235 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

foreseen is seldom as impressive as a trivial one 
which takes a man unawares. 

Thus a soldier is more apt to become flustered 
when walking along a supposedly safe road far 
in the rear, which suddenly becomes the target 
for promiscuous and relatively ineffective shell- 
ing, than he would when, after due deliberation, 
he faces heavy machine-gun fire in making an at- 
tack across no-man's-land. 



236 



XVII 

THE NEW BRITISH INFANTRY PLATOON 

March 26th, The present successes of the 
British armies are based on improved discipline 
and team work. 

The individual recruit is at first averse to 
rigid discipline, but needless and appalling losses 
drill into him the lesson that he must subordinate 
his individuality to his team unit. 

The men of Great Britain and France cannot 
be blindly driven to the attack as the Teuton 
forces are. The German military theory of un- 
reasoning obedience is a fairly effective one, as 
her victories of the first months of the war so fear- 
fully demonstrated, but the Allied armies have 
now reached an even more effective stage of 
reasoning obedience. 

As iron in the furnace is converted into steel, 
so, in the hell of battle, the Allied soldier has 
learned that the individual is there less than an 
atom in importance, and that rigid discipline and 

237 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

close co-operation alone can preserve him from 
sudden death and render him effective. 

Each new army, that has been added to the 
Allied forces, has at first shown the same lack of 
discipline, and each in turn has learned its ter- 
rible lesson on the battle-field. 

A nurse in a hospital asked a Tommy how he 
got wounded, and he replied : "We was marchin' 
up an' we meets a sergeant. 'Boys!' says 
'e, 'if ye stan' at that corner ye '11 be blown to 
'ell!' an' we was blown to 'ell, and so was 'e, the 
bloomin' pessimist!" 

In the present war, the fate of armies depends 
more and more upon the small units and their 
leaders. 

In previous wars, when troops fought in 
masses, and the battle-field was consequently of 
small extent, the lieutenants, captains, majors, 
colonels and generals usually perceived an emer- 
gency simultaneously, and the commanding gen- 
eral gave orders which caused the whole army to 
respond to the exigency in instant unison. 

In recent battles in France and Flanders it, 
on an average, took the captain of an assaulting 

238 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

company fifty minutes to send a communication 
back to his battalion commander, and an equally 
long time for him to receive a reply. Since a 
battle emergency usually lasts only a few 
minutes, it is evident that under such conditions, 
the lieutenants and captains must often act en- 
tirely on their own responsibility. 

America's national devotion to baseball and 
football, which has so often invited the ridicule 
of foreigners, may yet prove for the new armies 
of the United States a most valuable asset. The 
realization of the importance of team work has 
been ground into two generations of Americans, 
who have fought on the athletic fields, or sat on 
the benches which surround them. 

As a football team is composed of eleven men, 
divided into forwards and backs, and a baseball 
team of nine men, who belong to the outfield, 
infield or battery, — so a British infantry team 
numbering thirty-two men, is made up of rifle- 
men, rifle grenadiers, bombers and Lewis gun- 
ners. Each soldier is trained to play a definite 
and carefully planned part, contributing towards 
the success of the team as a whole. 

This combination is called a platoon. 

In the conduct of modern battles the Army 
239 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

Corps is the principal administrative unit; and 
the Aeroplane Squadron, the Heavy Artillery 
Brigade and the Infantry Division are the three 
most important tactical units; but the Infantry 
Platoon is the unit of attack. It is the team 
which does the actual fighting under the leader- 
ship of its lieutenant, who is the team captain. 

Its armament includes all the weapons and 
tools employed by infantry, so that it is capable 
without outside help of defeating an equal num- 
ber of the enemy, under any conditions of ter- 3 
rain or climate. 

Every member of the team, including the lieu- 
tenant, is an expert bayonet fighter and a quali- 
fied rifleman. In addition, each is a specialist in 
either sniping, rifle-grenade firing, bombing or in 
handling the Lewis gun. 

The platoon, like all military organizations, 
and, indeed, all teams, cannot attain a maximum 
success without iron-clad discipline. Its watch- 
word must be "Discipline, Discipline, Disci- 
pline." 

Only the raw recruit scoffs at discipline, 
for the veteran clings to it as his one salva- 
tion from a useless and wasteful death. Six 
policemen can usually whip a mob of a thousand 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

men, but add discipline to that mob and the result 
is a battalion, within whose ranks its individual 
members can find safety from all attacks of any 
but most overwhelming numbers. 

The Canadian troops, when they first went to 
Europe, were ineffective and vulnerable because 
they did not sufficiently appreciate the value of 
rigid and punctilious discipline. They did not 
lack in courage or initiative, but these qualities, 
to have military value, must be co-ordinated by 
strict discipline. To-day having learned their 
lesson from experience, that most terrible of all 
teachers, the Canadians welcome the sternest 
discipline; and since they combine with this the 
will to use the bayonet, they are now among the 
most effective troops in Europe. 

The most desirable size for a fighting platoon 
has been determined by the test and trial of actual 
war conditions, and is limited by the maximum 
number which one lieutenant can personally 
command in battle, for it has repeatedly been 
demonstrated that men will not fight to the best 
of their ability unless an officer is present to lead 
and inspire them. 

In the present conditions of warfare, a lieu- 
tenant, even with the assistance of two good ser- 

241 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

geants, cannot personally handle more than thirty 
or thirty-five men. It therefore becomes evident 
that in battle the most effective infantry platoon 
is one comprising about this number. There- 
fore, although its paper strength is always more 
than fifty, a British platoon in actual combat, 
is usually organized on a basis of thirty-two men 
and one lieutenant, the latter being assisted 
by a platoon sergeant and two or more mes- 
sengers. The excess between thirty -two and 
fifty odd is needed to replace casualties and to 
furnish battalion signallers, carriers of tools, 
bombs, grenades, ammunition, barbed-wire, in- 
struments, flares, stretchers and signalling flags. 

All modern infantry companies have a nominal 
strength of about two hundred and fifty officers 
and men, but temporary subtractions for sick- 
ness, for absence, for wounds, and for detached 
service as scouts, runners, signallers, pigeon- 
flyers, ammunition carriers, moppers-up, salvage 
men, etc., invariably reduces this number, so that 
a company seldom goes into battle with more 
than one hundred and sixty combatants. This 
makes it possible to organize each company into 
four platoons of thirty-two men each, besides 

242 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

leaving a company reserve of some twenty men. 

Since the beginning of the present war, the 
British platoon has been reorganized according to 
a principle which has no precedent in history, 
but which has proved so effective that it is largely 
responsible for this year's great victories. 

This new platoon organization is based upon 
a revised estimate of the value of the Lewis gun 
and similar automatic rifles, it having been found 
that a single Lewis gun gives a fire effect superior 
to that of an entire platoon of thirty-two rifle- 
men. There are many reasons for this superior- 
ity — a few only need be mentioned here. 

In battle the enemy seldom exposes himself 
for more than a few seconds at a time. If he 
is to be effectively punished at such moments, a 
heavy fire must be promptly opened upon him. 
But thirty-two different men will not, as a rule, 
all see one target at the same instant, nor amid 
the din of battle can an officer indicate it to every 
one of them, before it shall have disappeared. 
Moreover, even a good rifleman cannot average 
to fire more than one well aimed shot each five 
seconds; and under the very best of peace ma- 
noeuvre conditions, no platoon of riflemen would 
ever be able to achieve this theoretical perfec- 

243 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

tion of thirty-two shots in that length of time. 
This ideal result is, therefore, practically unat- 
tainable, even under most favorable circum- 
stances. A Lewis gun, by contrast, is loaded 
with a drum containing forty-seven shots, and 
this entire charge can be effectively fired by one 
man, under almost any condition, in five or six 
seconds, thus giving a sudden annihilating burst 
of fire. The Lewis gunner can take advantage of 
fleeting opportunities, which a platoon rifleman 
would miss. 

Experience has shown that when engaged in 
active battle, a platoon of riflemen, which has once 
been deployed into line facing the enemy so 
that they may all see to fire upon him, cannot 
subsequently be reassembled and deployed in a 
new direction without exposing itself to prohibi- 
tive casualties. Under no condition, can it 
change place quickly, since a full platoon de- 
ployed on a firing line covers a front about forty 
yards wide, and a change of position would re- 
quire the outlying men to move some thirty or 
forty yards. The operator of a Lewis gun, on 
the other hand, can turn his sheaf of bullets from 
side to side as quickly as a fireman can direct the 
stream from his hose. 

2U 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

The total fire effect of a platoon of riflemen 
is no better than that of the average excellence 
of the marksmen which compose it ; while a Lewis 
gun, being operated by picked shots, has an aver- 
age effect greater than that of a whole platoon 
of riflemen, although it is in itself less accurate 
than a rifle. 

The fire volume of a platoon of riflemen 
decreases in proportion to the number of casual- 
ties, for if half the marksmen are disabled, the 
fire volume is then reduced by fifty per cent. 
But in the new British platoon, where there are 
eight Lewis gunners to each gun, only two of 
them are exposed at one time, while the other 
six take shelter and lie in reserve, so that if one 
of the original gunners is hit, he can immediately 
be replaced. Thus, before the volume of fire 
from a Lewis gun can be definitely shut off, four 
successive teams of two gunners each would have 
to be put out of action. 

To obtain the full fire effect of a platoon, using 
rifles, thirty-two individuals who must be con- 
sidered as national assets, are, all at one time, 
exposed to the fire of the enemy; who is, more- 
over, certain to perceive them more quickly be- 
cause of their greater number. To obtain the 

245 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

fire effect of a Lewis gun, only two men, the 
gunner and the loader, are exposed to danger 
and they are less likely to be noticed by the en- 
emy, because two men can keep cover where 
thirty-two could not. 

Since, for these reasons, a Lewis gun operated 
by one of the four squads of the platoon gives a 
result superior to that which would be obtained 
if all four squads used rifles, and as it has been 
proved by the experience of actual warfare to 
give a fire effect amply sufficient for the needs 
of the platoon, and since it can be oper- 
ated and kept in action under almost any condi- 
tions by the eight men of one squad, the three 
remaining squads are consequently left free to 
devote themselves to other duties than that of 
obtaining fire effect. 

The fire of a Lewis gun, like the fire of a 
platoon of riflemen cannot, of course, injure the 
enemy once he has taken shelter in the trenches, 
and, therefore, the three squads, left over after 
the selection of the Lewis gun operators, are 
armed and trained to deal with him in this latter 
contingency. 

One of these three squads is armed with rifle- 
grenades which have a range of several hundred 

246 " 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

yards and their plunging fire is especially effect- 
ive against an enemy sheltered in trenches. 
These grenades are about as deadly as the field 
artillery shells used in our Civil War. 

A second squad specializes in the use of the 
rifle, in order to deal effectively with enemy snip- 
ers, particularly in saps and other positions out- 
lying his main defenses. 

The third squad is armed with bombs, which 
weigh about a pound and a half each, and which 
can be thrown to a maximum distance of fifty 
yards. The bomb most employed by the Allies 
is known as the Mills Hand Grenade. It is com- 
paratively a new weapon, and there was, for a 
time, a tendency to overestimate its value and to 
use it as a substitute for the rifle and bayonet. 

Attacks over the open with the rifle and bayo- 
net, when vigorously pushed home, will always 
succeed in making progress if the co-operation 
between the infantry and the artillery is good ; on 
the other hand, bombing attacks along trenches, 
however vigorously supported by artillery, will 
never succeed in making much real progress. It 
may be taken for granted that an attack which 
had degenerated into the bombing stage, has been 
brought to a standstill. 

247 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

There are, however, during an assault, three 
duties for which bombers are required and for 
which they need to be carefully trained. They 
are used by "moppers-up" to kill or subdue 
the garrisons in enemy trenches already captured 
or passed over by the assaulting wave. They 
must also assist the riflemen in holding the cap- 
tured positions by repulsing counter bombing at- 
tacks of the enemy. After the ob j ective has been 
attained, it is their duty to assist advancing forces 
to get in touch with their allied units on the 
flanks; this is done by clearing out an enemy 
who may hold any isolated positions intervening 
between two allied units. 

Since the infantry platoon is the righting team 
which carries the soldiers to the point of contact 
with the enemy, and since the lieutenant is 
its commander, no discussion of the platoon 
would be complete, which did not conclude with 
a description of its leader and the qualifications 
which are most valuable in such an officer. 

It has been said that the present conflict is a 
lieutenant's war, and therefore in the British 
forces the platoon leaders are selected from the 
whole army for their intelligence, courage and 
ability to lead men, and are not only taught to 

248 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

fill any one of the various positions in team work, 
but they must also possess the inborn gift of 
teaching others. Most of these officers are very 
young men, who two or three years ago were boys 
at schools like Eton or Rugby, but who to-day 
are veterans with war records replete with 
splendid courage and self-sacrifice. 

Each lieutenant is required to train his little 
band of followers when in camp, to care for their 
bodily comforts in the field, and to lead them in 
battle. He is teacher, father and master to his 
men. He is deus eoc machina. 

Although there has never been a war in which 
organization and complicated scientific equip- 
ment have played such a tremendous part, yet 
at the same time there has never, since the Middle 
Ages, been an epoch when inspiring individual 
leadership of small bands of men has counted for 
so much. 

The lieutenant is expected to be the bravest, 
most cheerful and self-sacrificing individual in 
the platoon which he commands. 

Ail along the line of actual conflict between 
the opposing armies, little bands of warriors are 
now led much as the knights of old led their fol- 
lowers. When in the battle-front, each band is 

249 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

so isolated by the conditions of the conflict and 
by an ever watchful enemy, that it often loses 
touch with everything in the world except the 
platoon upon its right and left. Food and water 
to sustain life and ammunition with which to 
carry on the fight comes to it at intervals from 
the dim rear. 

Four things are demanded of a lieutenant, each 
progressively more difficult than the one before: 

(1) He must train his own platoon. — For- 
merly when a company contained only sixty or 
eighty men, a captain could efficiently drill them 
all ; but as a company now numbers two hundred 
and fifty men, the task has become a well nigh 
impossible one for the captain; therefore that 
duty devolves upon the lieutenants. 

(2) By maintaining the strictest discipline, he 
must bring them well and safe through the route 
marches and trench holding which leads up to 
an attack, and then carry them at a steady walk 
to within fifty yards of the enemy infantry, before 
giving the final order which culminates in the 
conclusive charge with the rifle and bayonet. 

(3) When the decisive moment arrives and 
the charge has begun, he must inspire his men by 

250 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

the example of his own bravery. He carries a 
rifle and bayonet and is expected to do more 
fighting and kill more Huns than any other one 
man in the platoon. 

(4) The objective and its enemy defenders 
having been conquered, he must reconstruct the 
platoon, which has temporarily disintegrated into 
a fighting mob, and then proceed to the attack 
of the next objective. 

Most lieutenants accomplish the first three 
tasks, but scarcely one in three attains the last. 
A lieutenant who carries his first objective, and 
subsequently reorganizes his platoon, and with it 
conquers a second objective, will by nightfall al- 
most certainly be either dead or a captain. 

A more specific conception of the high standard 
to which the platoon commander is expected to 
attain, may be gathered from the following list 
of orders embodied in the instructions which were, 
before the battle of Arras, issued to platoon com- 
manders by the British General Staff. 

"The platoon commander can gain the confi- 
dence of his men : 

"(a) By being the best man at arms in the 
platoon, or trying to be so. 

251 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

"(b) By being quick to act, taking real com- 
mand on all occasions, issuing clear orders, and 
not forgetting to see them carried out; 

"(c) By being himself well turned out, punc- 
tual, and cheery, even under adverse circum- 
stances ; 

"(d) By enforcing strict discipline at all 
times. This must be a willing discipline, not a 
sulky one. Be just but do not be soft — men de- 
spise softness. 

"(e) By recognizing a good effort, even if it 
is not really successful. A word of praise, when 
deserved, produces better results than incessant 
fault-finding ; 

"(f) By looking after his men's comfort be- 
fore his own and never sparing himself ; 

"(g) By demanding a high standard on all oc- 
casions and never resting content with what he 
'takes over,' be it on the battle-field or in billets. 
Everything is capable of improvement, from in- 
formation on the battle-field down to latrines, 
and washing places in billets. 

"(h) By being blood-thirsty, and ever think- 
ing how to kill the enemy, and helping his men 
to do so. 

"The platoon commander should be the proud- 
252 



The New British Infantry Platoon 

est man in the Army. He is commander of the 
unit in the attack. He is the only commander 
who can know intimately the character and capa- 
bilities of each man under him. 

"He can if he is so disposed, establish a esprit 
de platoon which will be hard to equal in any 
other formation." 



253 



XVIII 

THE WILL TO USE THE BAYONET 

"The will to use the bayonet" is synonymous 
with the "will to victory" says a British manual; 
and to come to close quarters where men can use 
the bayonet constitutes the final, decisive stage 
in nearly every battle, and is therefore the ulti- 
mate aim of all preliminary strategy and tactics. 
An enemy is never definitely conquered until he 
is captured or driven from the field of battle, but 
experience has shown that he cannot be shot out 
of his trenches and only flees or surrenders when 
the attacking infantry routs him out with the 
cold steel. 

When that supreme moment of actual personal 
conflict arrives, the platoon must and should 
temporarily disintegrate into a collection of in- 
dividual soldiers, fighting single combats. It is 
at this conclusive moment that the rifle and bay- 
onet, which have always been and still are the 

254 



The Will to Use the Bayonet 

infantryman's prime weapon, come into their 
own. 

The platoon organization carries the attack to 
close quarters, where conclusive victory can be 
won by killing or capturing the enemy troops 
and by taking possession of their positions. 

The new British platoon, cemented together by 
discipline, brings the soldier up to the parapet of 
the enemy trench, which he could never have 
reached by any individual effort. Once he has 
arrived, however, his personal skill and bravery 
have full play as he valiantly and confidently at- 
tacks Hun after Hun, until the enemy garrison 
is beaten into surrender and all resistance ceases. 

When this has been accomplished, the platoon 
reconstructs itself and proceeds to further con- 
quests. 

Nothing which has been said about the new 
platoon should be interpreted as depreciating the 
rifle and bayonet. The sole purpose of the new 
platoon is to bring its members quickly and 
economically to close quarters with a demoralized 
enemy, in order that they may then exterminate 
him with the rifle and bayonet, in the use of which 
every man has been thoroughly trained, before he 
was permitted to commence the study of the spe- 

255 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

cialties of bombing, rifle-grenade firing or Lewis 
gunning. 

It is carefully impressed on all ranks of the 
British forces that the rifle and bayonet, which 
should be considered as one weapon, is and al- 
ways will be the principal weapon of the in- 
fantryman, and that fighting units cannot become 
too expert in wielding it. Examples of its 
proper use are constantly brought to the soldiers' 
attention. 

A certain Australian, for instance, was granted 
the Victoria Cross not only because he performed 
a very gallant feat, but also because the British 
General Staff desired to call attention to the fact 
that in so doing he had made a classic use of his 
rifle and bayonet. 

A small enemy strong-point, which lay in front 
of the trenches occupied by his platoon, had 
proved very troublesome. Artillery bombard- 
ments and other ordinary methods of attack 
had failed to silence it. When these had proved 
ineffective, the Australian suggested that he be 
allowed to attempt, single-handed, a surprise at- 
tack. 

The strong-point was held by eight Germans, 
though their exact number was not known to the 

256 



The Will to Use the Bayonet 

Australian when he volunteered to attack them. 

Although he belonged to the bombing squad 
of his platoon and was therefore a specialist in 
the use of that weapon, he nevertheless took with 
him no bombs, but relied solely on his rifle and 
bayonet, which is the correct procedure in offen- 
sive fighting at close quarters. 

He climbed out of his trench, and aided and 
supported by the snipers, rifle grenadiers, bomb- 
ers and Lewis gunners of his own platoon, was 
able, unobserved, to creep within fifty or sixty 
yards of the enemy position. He was then so 
close to his objective that his platoon mates were 
forced to cease firing, for fear they might hit him. 

Thus left entirely to his own resources, he rose 
to his feet and charged towards the enemy, one 
of whom, being no longer kept under cover by 
the opposing fire, looked out towards the British 
lines to see what was going on, and was startled 
by the sight of a single British soldier charging 
towards him and already within fifty yards. In 
his surprise, he fired an ineffective shot which, 
however, served to give the alarm to his comrades 
in the trenches behind him. 

Although the Australian's one desire was to 
come to close quarters as quickly as possible, he 

25T 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

nevertheless realized that if he allowed the Ger- 
mans to fire at him without retaliation, they would 
be able to aim calmly and would certainly bring 
him down. 

As the enemy fired, he therefore stopped 
abruptly, and before the German could aim 
again, he made a quick snap shot and hit Boche 
between the eyes. 

The other Germans, at sound of the first shot, 
had started to join their comrade on the parapet, 
but on seeing his fate, hesitated just long enough 
to afford the Australian a precious moment in 
which to resume his rush. Taking full advan- 
tage of this pause, he covered half the remaining 
distance before another German ventured to 
raise his head above the parapet. 

The instant this new enemy appeared above 
ground, the Australian turned him over with 
a bullet through the brain, and again resumed his 
headlong charge before the remaining Germans 
could collect their wits; reaching their parapet, 
he fired a third deadly shot as he leaped into their 
trench, and then killed the five now demoralized 
survivors with the cold steel. 

The first of these meant to fight, but was 
killed by the onrushing Australian before he 

258 



The Will to Use the Bayonet 

could "get set," the other four, completely de- 
moralized, were killed one after another as they 
scrambled over each other in a wild attempt to 
escape from the narrow trench. Having com- 
pleted his work, the Australian aided by the pro- 
tecting fire of his own platoon, which covered his 
retreat, returned unhurt to his own lines. 

The platoon organization, cemented together 
by discipline, gave him the opportunity for vic- 
tory, but the victory itself was achieved by his 
will to use the bayonet. 

The support of his platoon organization en- 
abled him to advance, unmolested, to within fifty 
yards of his objective; but from that moment he 
was thrown on his own resources, and his agility, 
courage and skill in the use of the rifle and bayo- 
net enabled him to dispatch eight enemies in 
twenty seconds, and thereby to win the much 
coveted Victoria Cross. 

The bayonet is still the decisive weapon in 
battle, just as it has been since man first fashioned 
an edged weapon. The "Will to Use the Bayo- 
net" shares equally with "Discipline" the distinc- 
tion of being the deciding factors in war. 

Organizations cemented together by Discipline 
carry the soldier safely through training, travel, 

259 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

marches, and long months of trench-holding to 
the moment of attack, and then through the ad- 
vance to his Objective, where the Will to Use 
the Bayonet concludes the victory. 

When the sweeping charge crashes against the 
stubborn defense, battalions and platoons mo- 
mentarily disintegrate into individual warriors, 
thrown absolutely on their own resources. Each 
man is alone with his enemy. 

Such an elemental moment may occur at any 
time in the life of an infantryman, and when it 
comes, he often finds himself separated from 
eternity by less than the thickness of paper. In 
a trench fight there is neither the time nor the 
space for shooting; each man must rely solely 
upon his bayonet. Upon his will to use it de- 
pends his chance to stave off death and defeat. 
It therefore behooves him, while still in the train- 
ing camp, to prepare and rehearse himself both 
in body and mind for this supreme ordeal, and 
to consider with all seriousness how he will meet 
such a crisis. 

With this purpose in view, the infantryman 
of the British armies undergoes daily exercises 
in gymnastics and in bayonet fighting, to which 
he devotes a dozen hours a week. 

260 



The Will to Use the Bayonet 

Short talks by his veteran sergeant forewarn 
him of the sight and sensations of battle; calis- 
thenics and games make him quicker than his 
enemy both in mind and body; and lessons in 
the use of his weapon render him an uncon- 
querable bayonet fencer. 

The actual use of the bayonet, although im- 
portant, is not so vital a factor in deciding battles, 
as the definite consciousness of the will and skill 
to handle it effectively, for therein lies the con- 
fidence of the soldier in himself. If he doubts 
his own ability to give a good account of himself 
at close quarters, if he dreads the cold steel, the 
fear of it slows up his pace in the advance, and af- 
fects his accuracy of rifle fire long before he, 
comes in physical contact with the enemy; 
whereas if practice has given him confidence in 
his skill at fencing and thrusting, and his train- 
ing has made him alert in mind and agile in body, 
his greatest desire will be to encounter an enemy 
face to face, where skill and courage alone de- 
cide the issue. He then feels far safer than at 
a distance, where an accidental bullet or stray 
fragment of shrapnel may take him unawares. 

As has already been intimated, bayonet com- 
bats between German infantrymen and British 

261 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

infantrymen are comparatively of rare occur- 
rence, but the fact that twenty thousand un- 
wounded German infantrymen surrendered at 
the Battle of Arras was due to the fact that in 
twenty thousand individual cases, when a British 
infantryman came face to face with a German, 
the former was so much more determined and 
self-confident than the latter, that the German 
promptly decided the only way to save his skin 
was by immediate and unconditional surrender. 

This is more or less true of all military pre- 
paredness. Whatever an army is thoroughly 
ready to undertake, it is less often obliged to put 
in practice. 

The courses of training for the platoon are 
conducted by sergeants who have been graduated 
from a normal school of bayonet fencing. The 
instructor lays out complete trench systems and 
mans them with dummy Germans which he 
teaches his pupils to attack. The soldiers are 
repeatedly made to rehearse every detail of an 
assault. They march across an imitation no- 
man's-land, reach the enemy trenches and bayo- 
net with dispatch and efficiency the dummy 
Huns, who are supposed to man the machine-gun 
emplacements and dug-outs, until the mock at- 

262 



The Will to Use the Bayonet 

tack eventually ends in the capture of all the 
enemy's trenches. 

The sergeant in charge precedes each exercise 
by a lecture. He is usually an imaginative man 
of fluent but unrefined speech, who is not only 
a graduate of a bayonet fighting school, but also 
a veteran of many battles. From his own ex- 
perience, he tells the recruits exactly what battles 
are like, so that they may not be taken too much 
by surprise when they face the reality. He not 
only explains these experiences verbally, but acts 
them, illustrating each sentence with his body and 
bayonet. 

Half a hundred recruits gather around him; 
each holding his rifle with bayonet fixed. The 
instructor begins his discourse quietly, laying 
down his premises somewhat as follows : 

"The bayonet is not a pocket knife nor a gar- 
den tool. It is not made to chop firewood nor to 
toast bread. It is the most effective weapon of 
war, and it is meant to kill Germans with. 

"The only way to win a battle is by 'ard 
flghtin'. You never get anythin' for nothin', in 
war or anywhere else, so don't be afraid of losses. 

"When you go to the front you want to do it 
with the idea of seekin' 'ard fights — under f avor- 

263 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer* 

able conditions if possible — but favorable or un- 
favorable, make 'em rough. Get close to yer 
enemy. Look for 'im, get 'im into a corner of 
the ring, so to speak, and then mix it up. Rough 
him. Give 'im 'ell. 

"Yer must 'ave this idea firmly fixed in yer 
'ead when ye 're about to take part in your first 
attack. You will be in the trenches waitin' and 
not knowing exactly when the zero hour is to be. 
You may wait like that for several days, with 
a most particular 'ell of a bombardment going 
on all about you, some of it comin' at you, but 
most of it movin' towards the Boches, preparin' 
the way for you by bustin' up 'is wire and de- 
stroyin' 'is trenches. 

"And then while the bombardment is still goin' 
on as 'ard as ever, word comes that ye 're to go 
over the top at such and such a minute. 

"As the hour arrives the officers keep lookin' 
at their wrist watches, and the time don't seem 
to go very fast. Be a man. Don't begin 
thinkin' of 'ome, but remember what the Germans 
are tryin' to do to the worl'. Think of what 
they '11 do to you if they get you down. Think 
of their baby-killin' and their Belgian slaves and 
their Armenian massacres, and their burnin' and 

264 



The Will to Use the Bayonet 

pillagin' and be damn thankful that you Ve a 
chance to do somethin' towards stoppin' all that 
kind of thuggery for good an' all. 

"Don't stand with yer knees shakin' and yer 
eyes quiverin', but grind your teeth and think of 
the way they 're makin' people suffer everywhere 
with their kultur, and their 'me und Gott.' 

"And so about a minute before the time to 
go, yer wants to say to yerself : 'The time 'as 
come for me to do my bit. It 's goin' to be a 
rough party but I am goin' to make it a damn 
sight rougher for the Boche than for me.' 

' 'So with yer teeth grittin', yer eyes poppin' 
out, yer 'air standin' on end, and yer bayonet 
fixed, ye 're ready to go over the top when the 
time comes and the order is given. 

"An' when she comes don't wait a secon' for 
yer chums on the right or left, but clamber over 
the top and all go at once like a British lion after 
'is grub." 

By this time the recruits are enthralled by 
the words of the veteran sergeant who has gradu- 
ally worked himself up into a state of rage, and 
feels himself actually starting across no-man's- 
land. His teeth are gritting, his hair is on end. 
He pauses and the silence is heavy. 

266 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

"Drills, theories, text books, manoeuvres are all 
right in their way, but the bayonet is the thing 
that wins the battles, and the soldier who does 
the winnin' is generally a sweaty one with 'is 
sleeves rolled up, mud on 'is face, and blood in 
'is eye. 

"Th' order comes. Over you go. Ye 're ab- 
solutely goin' mad. You have yer objective and 
make strite for it, searchin' the ground on the 
way. You may be had by a sniper, and the 'Uns' 
shrapnel will be singin' all 'round you, but don't 
wait for anybody else to start puttin' 'Uns out 
of their misery. You may come across a 'ungry 
'un, about seven foot six 'igh waitin' for you in 
a shell 'ole or round a machine gun. Fly strite 
for 'im. Don't tickle 'im with yer bayonet but 
shove it in, point, barrel, left 'and, right 'and, 
and even the butt, right through 'is guts. 

"Now you 've got it in ye 've got to pull it out. 
So put a little more than 'uman force be'ind it, 
out it comes, an' when that 's done don't tarry 
and think of writin' a letter 'ome about it. Yer 
ain't done yet. That 's only yer first 'Un, and 
you goes for another, always lookin' round and 
havin' in mind yer objective, 'cordin' to orders. 
If you sees a 'Un 'idin', pounce on 'im like a 

266 



The Will to Use the Bayonet 

bally tiger and carry out the same ole pro- 
gram. 

"There 's a 'ell of a lot of noise goin' on, but 
don't stop, for if you stops you '11 get no mercy ; 
and the mercy you wants to give the 'Un is yer 
little bit of steel as far in 'im as you can stick it. 
If you can't use a bayonet, you might just as well 
fall down a drain pipe and get off the earth. 

"An' if the 'Un gets you, you won't be buried 
with music and all that. Oh, no ! First he '11 
pick yer pockets, tike away any little thing yer 
'ave worth tikin', and then yer body goes to the 
ovens where they'll cook it, and use yer fat 
to make nitroglycerine and oleomargarine out of. 
It 's bally awful, but that 's w'at 'appens. 

"So you wants to show the flghtin' spirit and 
there 's no flghtin' spirit in a snail. Keep yer 
'air on end, and always 'ave yer teeth grindin', 
and stay mad; and when yer sees the 'Uns run- 
nin', as yer often will, chase 'em madder than 
when yer first started." 

The last order is delivered in stentorian tones 
as the instructor enacted everything he describes, 
meanwhile making terrible grimaces. 

Every recruit has gripped his gun, every man's 
eyes are "poppin' " and it is evident that the 

267 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

energetic sergeant has made a great impression 
on the green men. 

He then musters them to the trenched field 
with its dummy Germans: and there they take 
their place in "our" front line trench awaiting 
the word "go." When it is given by the ser- 
geant, away they start charging across the copy 
of no-man's-land, springing into trenches, plung- 
ing their bayonets into bags, dodging around 
traverses and poking the "most effective weapon 
of war" through sacks and out the other side. 
Not one of them pauses, not even when they find 
themselves at the end suddenly confronted by a 
six foot jump. 

They do the course once, twice, a dozen times, 
led by the professionally infuriated corporal, who 
gives speed and energy to the mimic charge, yell- 
ing furiously when he thinks a man a bit slow. 

"That sack 's a 'Un, kill 'im. Don't slap 'im 
in the ribs or yer nime 's fat. Be mad!" 



268 



XIX 

THE GERMAN RETREAT FROM THE SOMME 

March 31st. This morning Lieutenant B. and 
I visited many French farms and villages, within 
the German salient beyond Arras and Bapaume, 
which the Germans have been forced to abandon. 

We visited the villages of Ficheux, Boisleux 
au Mont, Boisleux St. Mare, Boiry Besquelle 
and Boyelles and noted the dreadful state in 
which the Germans had left them. 

In this area there has been no battle, no fight- 
ing and no bombardment, so that we were able 
to test the true value of the oft-repeated German 
boast that they never wantonly destroyed French 
property. Throughout the war they have iter- 
ated and reiterated that destruction of villages 
and farms was due solely to bombardments, which 
were as often from the Allied guns as by Ger- 
man orders. 

In all these villages, and in all the surrounding 
country, the Huns had deliberately destroyed 

269 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

every building, barn or house. Not one re- 
mained standing. All had been wrecked by 
charges of explosives placed under their corners 
and foundation walls. 

But before this dynamiting was undertaken, 
however, the buildings had first been thoroughly 
pillaged; even the window-sashes and door-sills 
having been carted away to Germany. 

After the plundering and destruction were 
completed, the heaps of ruins had in most cases 
been set on fire. 

Ancient churches, built many centuries ago, 
were no exception to the general rule; each had 
been reduced to a shapeless pile of broken stones. 
The church at Boisleux au Mont, of which a pho- 
tograph is given, is quite typical of the rest. 

Throughout the country-side every tree larger 
than two inches in diameter had been cut down. 
Not one of the splendid poplars which lined 
and beautified the roads, not a single forest tree, 
not a fruit tree had escaped. From hill-tops one 
could look for miles, as far as the eye could reach, 
over a country littered with the fallen shade and 
fruit trees, without seeing one still standing up- 
right. 

As if this destruction had not sufficed to sat- 
270 



The German Retreat from the Somme 

isfy even the heart of a Hun, all the large trees, 
after they had been cut down, had been dyna- 
mited, the charges being inserted in holes bored 
with augers all along their trunks at intervals of 
six or seven feet. When these charges exploded, 
they had split the trees in shredded sections about 
two yards in length. 

The wells, springs and water courses had all 
been poisoned. And such is the fiendish clever- 
ness of German efficiency that no two were poi- 
soned alike. Some were defiled, some filled with 
germs, while others were poisoned with chemicals. 

"Booby" traps were sprinkled about the coun- 
try in the form of bombs, which were attached 
to wires, ready to blow to bits any poor unsus- 
pecting Tommy who did not carefully watch his 
step. 

One perceived many signs that the Germans 
had committed this destruction with the greatest 
enthusiasm. Circumstantial proof of this sort is, 
however, quite unnecessa^, for documentary evi- 
dences of the joy which the German nation ex- 
periences in destroying the property of other 
people are numerous. The testimony of their 
own war correspondents, for instance, shows in- 
controvertibly the satisfaction which the Germans 

271 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

feel when considering the damage which they 
have done since the war began. 

Hermann Klatsch, an official war correspond- 
ent, writing in the Munich "Neueste Nachrich- 
ten," speaks of this retreat and calls it a "glorious 
military achievement." He writes: "No home 
is left, no roof, no cellar was left intact; all the 
lands are destroyed, the fields turned up, the 
roads and bridges blown to pieces; no tree, no 
branch, no wood of any kind remains. The capa- 
ble male population has naturally been brought 
away to work on fields for us. The remaining 
women, children and old men will now be a charge 
on the French nation." 

The present condition of the front is one 
which, although common in previous wars, has in 
this trench warfare been unusual, for neither 
army at the present moment knows exactly where 
its opponent is to be found. 

The strategic retreat of the Germans from the 
Somme, carefully planned and prepared for dur- 
ing many weeks past, has enabled them to with- 
draw so rapidly from the hundred square miles 
of territory they are giving up, that it was evi- 
dently not deemed advisable for the British to 



The German Retreat from the Somme 

pursue them as closely as the Germans doubtless 
hoped and thought they would. 

Therefore a wide stretch of devastated country 
now lies between the two armies, and in this re- 
gion the contending forces have lost the close con- 
tact, which has so steadily been maintained ever 
since the Battle of the Marne. They now oc- 
cupy positions best represented by a bow and its 
strung cord, touching at the ends, and nearly ten 
miles apart at the center. 

Aeroplanes and advance guards are now 
searching this segment. To penetrate into this 
area of desolation has more dangers than one 
ordinarily experiences in the sharply contrasted 
trench warfare. 

Lieutenant B. and I appreciated the full 
significance of the old term "the fog of war," 
for although we could see for long stretches out 
over the country, we were yet totally ignorant of 
what might be concealed a hundred yards away; 
and when we saw troops moving in the distance, 
we had no certain means of knowing whether 
they were British or German. 

The success of open warfare depends much 
upon the ability of an army to penetrate this 
fog of war and to feel out and locate the enemy's 

27$ 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

army hidden behind it; to accomplish this is the 
principal aim of minor tactics, since the enemy 
naturally makes every effort to give sufficient 
body and strength to the fog, by means of out- 
posts and cavalry patrols, to prevent allied 
scouts from penetrating into the mysteries be- 
hind it. 

Our American, Stonewall Jackson, was past- 
master in this art of creating and maintaining the 
fog of war, and the Union generals lived in con- 
stant dread that, moving unseen behind its ob- 
scurity, he would at any hour suddenly appear 
from the direction least expected. 

As Lieutenant B. and I advanced into this 
deserted region, we for a time saw no living crea- 
ture — no member of the Allied Armies nor of 
the Teuton forces. 

We had walked several miles through deserted 
fields and wrecked villages, which spoke all too 
tragically of the recent German occupation, and 
were entering a desolate little village, when we 
heard in the distance a single rifle-shot. We 
could not judge from which direction the sound 
came. Not only the shot but also its context of 
dead silence was uncanny. 

We advanced cautiously from house to house, 
274 



The German Retreat from the Somme 

until we finally discovered in the distance a soli- 
tary man, standing motionless half -hidden in the 
battered doorway of a ruined house. 

We kept ourselves concealed until we had, by 
studying him through our field glasses, deter- 
mined that he was not Teuton but British and 
probably a sentinel. A closer approach proved 
our surmise to be correct. We questioned the 
man, although we knew by experience that the 
private soldier is not often a fruitful source of 
information, since he generally achieves a state 
of mind in which he accepts his orders and obeys 
them without desire for explanation. 

The sentry proved to be a Yorkshireman, and 
as he spoke to us in the dreadful dialect of his 
county, we had much difficulty in understanding 
what he said, but finally managed the following 
unfruitful conversation : 

"What village is this?" 

"X don't know, sir." 

"How far away are the Germans?" 

"I don't know, sir." 

"Where is your sergeant?" 

"In that barn with the platoon, sir." 

Since this seemed the only bit of information 
to be extracted from him, we proceeded to the 

275 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

barn and routed out the sergeant from the depths 
of a sonorous sleep. From him we gathered that 
his platoon had only recently marched to the vil- 
lage and was intended as support to an outpost 
line somewhere near by, which his superior officer 
had gone out to inspect. 

We left the sergeant and walked off a short 
distance to the far edge of the village, resigned 
to finding out the tactical situation for ourselves. 
Most of the houses were mere piles of rubbish, 
their relative mass alone indicating the size of 
the original building. 

When we came to the spot where lay the high- 
est pile of debris, we concluded that we had 
reached the site of the village church. As there 
was no better point of vantage from which to 
examine the surrounding country, we crawled 
cautiously up this slight elevation to make an ob- 
servation. 

A mile or two in front of us, in the direction of 
the German armies, we could see a railway train 
puffing along a hillside. We knew this was a 
German train, for weeks must pass before British 
railroads can be put in operation in this section. 

Between us and the train, we could at first dis- 
tinguish nothing but the same flat, empty deso- 

276 



The German Retreat from the Somme 

lation through which we had just been passing, 
but presently in the middle distance we noticed a 
man walking across a road. 

Lieutenant B. promptly inspected him through 
his field glasses. No- sooner had he focused 
his lens than he exclaimed — "By Jove, a Boche!" 
and almost as the words left his mouth, a bullet 
whistled between us and a rifle cracked. 

We stood not upon the order of our going, but 
slid down, fell down, jumped down from that 
pile of rubbish and none too soon, for we were 
no more than clear of this elevation, when a shell 
from a German 4.2" field howitzer struck squarely 
on the top, just where we had been standing, 
throwing up a great cloud of dust and debris. 
Keeping the screen of the ruined church pile be- 
tween us and the enemy, we beat a hasty retreat. 
Our reconnaissance had at least cleared up for 
us one element of the tactical situation. 



277 



XX 

BEFORE THE BATTLE OF ARRAS 

Thursday, March 22nd. All day, we have 
heard intermittently the distant rumble of a can- 
nonade in the east, while at night the flashes of 
the guns fitfully illumine the sky low down 
along the horizon in the north-east. The firing 
seems to be in the direction of Arras. 

Friday, March 23rd. All day long again to- 
day, we have heard the muttering and rumbling 
of the great bombardment in the east towards 
Arras. Of late, we have along the roads often 
met batteries coming from the Somme and march- 
ing towards the north and east. Arras and 
Vimy Ridge form a hinge upon which turns the 
German retirement in the south, towards Ba- 
paume and Peronne. Perhaps the cannonade 
means that a great attack is soon to be launched 
there against the Germans. 

278 



Before the Battle of Arras 

Tuesday, March 27th. The guns in the east 
have not sounded so loudly yesterday and to- 
day. This may be due to a change in the wind ; or 
perhaps the recent rapid German retreat imme- 
diately south of Arras in the neighborhood of 
Boyelle and Bullecourt has caused us to lose 
touch and temporarily postpone the battle. The 
Germans, however, are still firmly planted in 
great force along the Vimy Ridge and in front of 
Arras, and it is along this front that one of the 
greatest battles in the history of the world seems 
likely to take place. 

April 4th. By this evening everybody has 
heard the news of President Wilson's speech to 
Congress on the 2nd, and of his declaration that 
a State of War between Germany and America 
now exists. The optimism and enthusiasm 
created at the front by this announcement is 
simply tremendous. 

In a "certain mess," as the censor would have 
us say, I was one of a dozen who celebrated the 
occasion. Three of us were of American nation- 
ality. 

The old French chateau, which sheltered the 
mess, resounded to the strains of "Yankee- 

279 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

Doodle," "Marching Through Georgia" and 
"Dixie," played by Captain It. of the Coldstream 
Guards, on a cracked piano, which has not been 
tuned since the war began. A song was im- 
provised with the refrain "I would hate to be the 
Kaiser to-night." Eventually even the Staff 
Major became affected by the enthusiasm and 
reversing his staff officer's "brass hat" so that the 
visor stuck down the back, he cried, "I am a 
marine" and proceeded to execute a joyous 
horn-pipe. 

April 5th, 1917. I talked with a German 
captain of infantry, who had just been taken 
prisoner. He had no idea that I was an Ameri- 
can and when, to satisfy my personal curiosity, 
I told him about America's entrance into the war 
on the side of the Allies, and asked what he 
thought of it, he answered my question under the 
impression that I was an Englishman. 

His attitude was one of ridicule. He said 
"The intervention of the United States is of no 
importance whatever. America's Democracy is 
the most inefficient in the world — even more in- 
efficient than that of Great Britain. She cannot 
even prepare herself in time for defense against 

280 



Before the Battle of Arras 

our attack after we have beaten you. Much less 
can she be ready with an army in time to incon- 
venience us by sending troops to Europe. 

"All this slovenliness and inefficiency which 
you call Democracy will eventually be replaced 
by a hultur like that of modern Germany. This 
conflict between your rotten Democracy and our 
efficient hultur lies at the moral basis of the 
present war." 

In contrast to this attitude of mind we have 
the Schopenhauer estimate of his fellow country- 
men, when he writes: "In anticipation of death 
I make this confession, that I despise the German 
nation on account of its infinite stupidity, and 
that I blush to belong to it." 

Nothing which I have seen at the front, or in 
France and England leads me to believe that the 
war will soon be over. On the contrary, it is my 
impression that the conflict cannot be terminated 
until America has exerted to the full her military 
potentialities, and that the attainment of peace 
upon a basis of victory for the cause of* Democ- 
racy and Liberty depends more upon the rapid- 
ity and efficiency with which she mobilises her 

281 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

resources and her man-power than upon any 
other single factor. 

A great battle is to be fought in a very few 
days along the Arras-Vimy Ridge front. 

I am to proceed to Arras to-morrow morning 
to take part in the battle and to remain until it 
is over. 

April 6th. I left G. H. Q. early this morning. 

After several hours run we approached Arras 
along the road from St. Pol and Aubigny. We 
passed between scores of batteries of all calibres 
emplaced in fields in every direction and all firing 
steadily and methodically. The whole landscape 
seemed to flicker with the flash of the guns, which 
were so well hidden as to be invisible. Scores of 
aeroplanes were in the sky, flying in all directions 
and at all altitudes and pursued by innumerable 
groups of little black smoke puffs, — exploding 
shells from the enemy's "Archies," as anti-air- 
craft guns are called. 

We entered the city gate and noticed that a 
large corner had been knocked off since our visit 
of day before yesterday, making yet another scar 
added to the score which already covered it. 

282 



Before the Battle of Arras 

In the town itself we saw on all sides fresh 
signs of damage. The explosion of German 
shells was so constant as to be almost continu- 
ous. As we picked our way through the streets 
I, in one minute by my watch, counted seventy 
separate explosions near enough to be distin- 
guishable against the roaring background of 
sound. 

We stopped at a certain old public building, 
the walls of which were full of gaping holes and 
pock-marked by thousands upon thousands of 
shell and shrapnel bullets. We were in search of 
an officer whose bureau de travail was in one of its 
numerous cellars. We had some difficulty in 
finding him in the semi-darkness, for most of the 
sky-lights were blocked up with sand bags and 
the only lights within came from guttering 
candles and dingy lamps. 

Among the subterranean arches and passages 
into which we penetrated, we saw hundreds of 
Tommies who were sleeping, washing, eating, or 
busy cleaning accoutrements. Many of them 
were industriously hunting vermin. In one case, 
an entire platoon was sitting about stripped to 
the waist and hunting insectivori ("cooties" as 
the men call them), down the seams of their 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

clothing, looking for all the world like monkeys 
in a monkey house. 

My first move on arriving in Arras was to re- 
port to the Provost-Marshal and apply for a 

billet. He placed me at the Hotel de , so 

well and favorably known to thousands of 
British officers. The keeping open of this hotel 
is one of the most praiseworthy deeds 'of the 
civilian Frenchmen, for during nearly three 
years the German lines have been only 1,500 
yards away, and the hotel is located in one of 
the most steadily bombarded quarters of the city. 

Although somewhat sheltered from hostile fire 
by high buildings which stand immediately be- 
tween it and the enemy, it has nevertheless 
been the victim of more than thirty direct hits 
from guns of all calibres, and scarcely a day 
passes that it is not struck by shell-splinters or 
pieces of stone from buildings across the street 
in positions more frequently hit. 

The roof of the hotel has disappeared and veiy 
little is left of the top story. The last surviving 
pane of glass was broken by concussion more than 
two years ago. On stormy nights the wind 
whistles through the halls, the rain beats into the 

284* 



Before the Battle of Arras 

rooms while water cascades down the stair- 
wells. 

Nevertheless, in order that the Allied officers 
on duty in the neighborhood, or passing through 
on missions, may always be sure of a bed and 
a meal, the patriotic proprietor and his manager 
have kept open house every day since the Ger- 
mans were expelled from the town in October, 
1914. Here men straight from weeks in the 
muddy trenches are received with the greatest 
hospitality, and can wash up, sleep in a luxurious 
bed possessing sheets, blankets and pillows; and 
partake of a civilized meal. 

That the place is run from patriotic rather 
than commercial motives must be concluded from 
the scale of prices. The charge for a room is 
only two francs, and four francs fifty is the price 
of an excellent meal, which includes soup, unlim- 
ited bread and butter, a large omelette, which 
measures up to the best tradition of French ome- 
lettes, a generous supply of meat and potatoes, 
and finally Camembert cheese and coffee. Red 
wine is one franc fifty per person additional. 
One cannot help contrasting it favorably with 

such places as the Hotel du in Amiens, a 

good thirty miles from the front, where British 
officers are charged eight francs for an inferior 

285 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

meal and pay an additional exorbitant price for 
wine. 

The constant concussions and explosions would 
break glass almost before it could be inserted, 
and the windows in the dining room of the Hotel 

de are accordingly covered with heavy 

linen cloth to keep out the weather. The ceiling 
is studded with more than forty steel splinters 
from shells, which have burst on the side-walk 
outside, and sent their fragments flying through 
the windows into the room. All the mirrors have 
long since been broken, and one can reach up 
along the panelling which encases them and touch 
jagged bits of German steel embedded deeply 
and solidly into the wall. 

As I sat down to dinner this evening, the build- 
ing shook and trembled with the concussions of 
German shells bursting in the immediate neigh- 
borhood, their sharp menacing blaams mingling 
with the guns of the British batteries which are 
emplaced" on all sides of the town. 

The proprietor and his manager walked among 
the guests, who are now exclusively British offi- 
cers, and their perfect courtesy, so typical of 
France's professional hosts, was not abated one 
whit by the fact that, because of the cannonade, 

286 



Before the Battle of Arras 

their pleasantries had sometimes to be repeated 
three or four times before they could be heard 
by the guests. 

During dinner, a particularly violent bombard- 
ment lasting several minutes broke out, and while 
this was in progress the manager politely moved 
two officers from a table near an end window, 
explaining to them that experience had shown 
that window to be the most dangerous one in the 
room, since nearly half the fragments embedded 
in the walls had flown in through it, and that it 
was, therefore, wiser for them to change to other 
seats. He said this with the same matter-of- 
fact courtesy which one would have expected 
from a peace-time proprietor moving his guests 
from one table to another because the view was 
there slightly better. 

It was not until after lunch that I left the 
city on foot. It was raining steadily, — the rain 
so often produced by a heavy bombardment. 

I followed the main Arras-Lens road, which 
enters the German lines some five thousand yards 
north of Arras, until I reached a hill between 
E curie and Roclincourt, distant about one thou- 
sand yards from the German trenches. 

287 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

This hill stands in the middle of the great Brit- 
ish salient, which here thrusts itself out into the 
enemy lines. From this elevation the battlefield 
of Arras may be seen, spread out in panorama. 
Here one is able to study the German trenches 
along a front of ten thousand yards from La 
Folie farm at the foot of Vimy Bidge in the 
north to Blangy in the south. In the cover 
of a shattered building, I sat down to rest for a 
few minutes while I watched the battle. 

The terrific British preparatory bombardment 
was now at its height. 

The air over-head was alive with a constant 
stream of British shells of all calibre rushing by 
to crash upon the German positions ; the sky was 
noisy with their whisperings, whistlings and roar- 
ings. 

Behind me the little village of Ecurie was, in 
its turn, the target of a battery of German heavy- 
artillery. In the space of a few minutes, twenty 
or twenty-five big shells fell into it; their explo- 
sions, which fairly shook the ground, dropped bits 
of mud and bricks all about me where I sat. 

My field glasses enabled me to study the Ger- 
man trenches in their every detail. I could see 
their long crest, the parados behind, the parapet, 



Before the Battle of Arras 

the wire entanglement in front, and I could even 
watch our own trench-mortar shells sailing hun- 
dreds of feet into the air, finally to fall and burst 
in the enemy positions. 

British shells were crashing upon the German 
wire, along the hostile trenches and in all the 
country for miles behind. Each puff of whitish- 
brown smoke, shot for the briefest moment with 
the blood-red fire, threw bits of debris and chunks 
of mud hundreds of feet into the air, scattering 
them over acres of ground. 

Almost without intermission burst succeeded 
burst; they were constant and unceasing, every 
instant a score were visible within the field of my 
glass ; and in and out among the smoke and flying 
debris, the salvos of our shrapnel burst in the air 
and burst again, their scattering bullets searching 
unerringly every nook and cranny of the German 
trenches, already laid open by our heavy shells. 

Night was falling as I returned to Arras. 
Hidden among the ruin of a farm on the out- 
skirts of the city, I came upon a battery of four 
big "9.2" howitzers hammering away at the Ger- 
man lines. They were firing slowly and method- 
ically, one or two rounds a minute. The ground 

289 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

trembled and heaved at every shot, while the 
blast of the discharge was so terrific that, from 
time to time, bits of the tottering walls of the 
old farmhouses were blown down, and tiles were 
lifted off the broken roofs; all the windows had 
long since been shattered. 

The muzzles of the guns were elevated at an 
angle of forty or fifty degrees. The eye could 
follow the great projectiles, weighing nearly the 
sixth of a ton, for five or six seconds after the 
moment of discharge, while the ear could distin- 
guish their diminuendo scream for nearly as long 
a period. 

It was long after dark when I finally reached 
my billet. , 

Young Lieutenant B. came back from London 
day before yesterday, where he had spent a forty- 
eight hours' leave with his young wife. 

He is very much a veteran, having enlisted at 
the outbreak of the war in a Canadian cavalry 
regiment, of whose members only a score still sur- 
vive in active service. He had "been out" since 
November, 1914, having earned the D. C. M. at 
Festubert, and having subsequently won his com- 
mission. 

290 



Before the Battle of Arras 

Yesterday he was in a most gloomy frame of 
mind, and suffered from a premonition of disas- 
ter which he could not seem to throw off. In 
spite of the reassurances of his fellow officers, he 
stoutly maintained that some personal disaster 
was impending. 

Such premonitions so frequently prove correct, 
that one no longer jests at them, and no one was 
unduly surprised when, after being suddenly sent 
to the front this morning, he was badly shaken 
up by a big shell. He was in a bay of a front 
line trench with several soldiers when the shell 
fell squarely into it, killing outright every one 
except himself. His only comment was that he 
knew something was going to happen and now 
that it is over he expects clear sailing. 

After an excellent dinner in the Hotel de 

, I went to sleep to the sound of cannon, 

bursting shells and machine-guns, which formed 
a deep background for the notes of a cracked 
piano near by in some cellar and for the voices of 
soldiers singing cheery songs in the pitch-dark 
streets outside. 

Saturday, April 7th. Between the time I 
reached my billet last night and breakfast hour 

291 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

this morning, I doubt if there were two consecu- 
tive seconds without an explosion in the imme- 
diate vicinity. It is surprising how quickly one 
becomes accustomed to the racket and learns to 
distinguish through it other much lower noises, 
such, for instance, as the sound of voices. 

After an early breakfast I tramped through 
the trenches all the way from Arras to Souchez, 
nearly eight miles as the crow flies, and then 
back behind the line through Mont St. Eloi, 
where still stands the ruins of the cathedral de- 
stroyed by the Boches in 1870. I walked about 
twenty-three miles in all, most of the way through 
deep mud. 

I was for the greater part of the time with 
the Canadians along the foot of the Vimy Ridge. 
It is the first that I have come in contact with 
them, and after months of British broad "a" it 
was like a breath from home to catch every now 
and then the nasal twang of some good old 
Yankee serving in the Canadian ranks. 

When I asked one corporal what province he 
came from, he was for the moment very much 
taken back and blushing bright red finally stut- 
tered "Pennsylvania, sir." "Well, Corporal," I 



Before the Battle of Arras 

replied, "you needn't look so guilty, for I hail 
from that province myself." 

At another time, I was plodding through a par- 
ticularly sloppy trench, only a few hundred yards 
from the German lines. The water in it was no- 
where less than a foot deep, and thick mud lay 
beneath the water. The duck-boards floating 
about on the surface collided with one's shins and 
proved much more of a hindrance than a help. 

Above ground, parallel to this trench, ran a 
hard macadam road of which the trench had for- 
merly been the gutter, now deepened to eight or 
nine feet. 

In spite of the German bullets, the road looked 
decidedly tempting. After a mile or so of tramp- 
ing around the traverses, squeezing past carrying 
parties going in the opposite direction, splash- 
ing through water and mud and knocking against 
duck-boards, the temptation to take the road was 
well-nigh irresistible. However, the trench was 
posted at intervals with signs saying "All Troops 
Will Keep Strictly to the Trench," and orders 
must be implicitly obeyed by officers. 

I overtook a carrying party of eight or nine 
Canadian soldiers, each loaded down with a great 

298 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

roll of barbed-wire. They were making exceed- 
ingly slow and difficult progress; and their pro- 
fanity was nothing short of superb. Finally 
one enterprising spirit couldn't endure it any 
longer and whereupon, remarking that he 
didn't give a good, g . . . , d . . . for all the 
b . . . b . . . signs on earth, climbed up the 
trench and out upon the road. The rest of the 
party were just starting to follow him when 
suddenly a hawk-eyed individual, wearing the 
three stars of a captain, stuck his head out of a 
dug-out in a jack-in-the-box manner, and shouted 
out in a most pronounced Maine accent: — "You 
fellas '11 ha' ta git off that there road." Then 
in a voice that might have been employed by a 
Yankee farmer telling a ten year old boy to come 
in out of the rain, he added, "Why! the Germans 
are just over there in that row o' trees! You 
want ta git wise ter the principal feachures of 
the landscape !" 

The head then jerked back after the manner 
of a startled turtle retiring into his shell. The 
carrying party first stopped open mouthed, and 
then clambered sulkily back into the trench. 

At another point the trench passed through a 
culvert about five and a half feet high, and on 

294 



Before the Battle of Arras 

a board over this culvert were chalked up the 
words "Low bridge — duck your nutt." 

I returned to my billet long after dark and 
did not finish dinner until half -past nine. 

Before going to bed I went out for a short 
walk. 

After thirty-six hours of almost constant 
downpour the sky seems to have rained itself out, 
and the weather has at last cleared ; it is the fair- 
est of moonlight nights, so bright that one could 
easily see to read. 

There are striking contrasts of white light and 
inky black shadows. Certain streets are brim- 
full of opaque darkness, while others are lit from 
end to end with the cold silvery rays of the 
moon. 

In the weird streets are many soldiers clad in 
khaki, which is never more completely invisible 
than at night. An ambulance glides along on 
rubber tires, silently emerging from thick shadow 
into silvery light and disappearing again into 
darkness. 

The sky in all directions flickers continually 
with the lightnings of the guns, which fitfully 
throw into clear relief the silhouette of battered 

295 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

towers or the jagged outlines of dead and lonely- 
walls. 

It is a night such as Dante might have con- 
ceived, with its ghostly men, its stark and ruined 
walls against the flashing sky, its trembling earth, 
its rumbles and crashes, inextricably intermingled 
with the distant rattle of machine-guns and the 
closer scream of shells ploughing overhead 
through the sea of noise. 

Although the guns crash out incessantly, the 
night yet gives one an utterly weird impression 
of a death-like stillness. One becomes so accus- 
tomed to the tremendous cannonading that it 
seems but the background of other trifling noises. 
One grows so used to the staggering roar that one 
would miss it if it should suddenly cease, just as a 
woodsman in the city misses the wilderness' great 
background of silence. 

At this hour Arras is indeed "a city of dreadful 
night." How much more dreadful may it be- 
come when the battle's great attack is launched; 
when the wounded pass through it in thousands, 
and the Hun begins to shell it in his maximum 
deadly earnest. 

Many there are who expect that when the hour 
of attack arrives, it will bring to Arras hundreds 

?m 



Before the Battle of Arras 

of thousands of incendiary and gas shells, which 
will devastate the town as Ypres and Rheims 
have already been devastated. 

April 8, 1917. I spent the morning in my 
billet finishing my notes and reports. Dur- 
ing the last two days, I have traversed the whole 
eighteen thousand yard front of the coming bat- 
tle, from Souchez beyond Vimy in the north, to 
the trenches opposite Tilloy and "La Harpe" in 
the south. 

Yesterday and the day before I had an early 
breakfast and a late evening meal and have been 
absent from my billet in the intervening time, 
taking a slab of chocolate in one coat pocket and 
sandwiches in the other to serve as lunch and tea. 

To-day, however, I took my noon bite in a 
small cafe, preparatory to an afternoon of 
hard tramping. During the meal the Germans 
strafed the particular neighborhood in which the 
cafe was located and dropped nine big shells 
within a few yards of it. One hit the building 
in the upper story, another the house next door, 
and still another, of which the splinters came 
through the dining-room, hit the house diagonally 
across the way, knocking its second and third 

297 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

stories into the street, which was blocked with ten 
or fifteen tons of fallen stone. A thick opaque 
cloud of dust filled the room and the street, and 
for a time made it impossible to see more than 
fifteen or twenty yards. 

Every meal that I have had since I arrived in 
this section has been an eventful one, something 
exciting seems each time bound to happen. To- 
night I dined at a little cafe, the half score tables 
of which were nearly all occupied by officers. 
The bombardment was so heavy that conversa- 
tion was impossible. I took a seat with my back 
to the window; while waiting for soup and wine 
to arrive, I examined the various officers in the 
room. A few were subalterns straight from the 
trenches ; at a corner table three staff officers were 
comparing notes and maps with their heads close 
together, conveying their comments by signs or 
written notes. Two chaplains, "padres" as they 
are affectionately called by the troops, were sit- 
ting side by side opposite me, their backs against 
the side-board, upon which the plates and glasses 
were stacked. Half a dozen officers intervened 
between me and them. 

Suddenly there was a terrific explosion which 
fairly made the building rock; the second story 

298 



Before the Battle of Arras 

of a house diagonally across the street had been 
hit by a heavy shelL A jagged fragment six 
inches long crashed in through the window about 
two feet above my head ; skimming over the offi- 
cers intervening between me and the padres, it 
passed between their two heads and struck the 
pile of plates stacked just behind them on the 
side-board. 

Bits of china flew in all directions with an ef- 
fect similar to that in a comedy plate-breaking 
turn in vaudeville. The proprietor was a bit 
irritated, and declared it very bad luck that the 
shell fragment could not have gone a thought 
higher and missed his china. Every one was 
amused and several people rallied the proprietor, 
one man saying, "There go the evening profits." 
A table of rather riotous young subalterns 
clapped their hands, applauding the padres be- 
cause neither of them had moved an inch when 
the plates "went up" so close behind them. 

During the last two or three days I have on 
several occasions been with Scottish troops on 
the Arras front and have encountered several 
amusing incidents illustrative of the well-known 
Scottish passion for education. 

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The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

A "Jock" was carrying a huge coil of wire to- 
wards the front. The trench was crowded and 
he therefore climbed out and proceeded above 
ground, regardless of bullets. "Come out of 
that, you fool!" said an officer, whereupon the 
Jock replied, "If Ah was to come aside o' you I 
would never get through with ma day's worrk." 

He was "had up" next morning in "orderly 
room" charged with insubordination and with 
rudeness to an officer. Asked what he had to 
say for himself he answered: — 

"Ah was not rude. Ah merely observed that 
if Ah was to come doon, I would never get thro 
ma day's worrk ; — which was true. An' besides, 
bein' up there was fine education for a young mon 
like me!" 

Recently Scotch troops were holding a trench 
which was undergoing bombardment. A ser- 
geant and a private were sitting quietly to- 
gether in one tranverse when by a most unlucky 
chance a "whizz-bang" fell squarely into the 
trench and killed the private. The sergeant 
looked sadly at the dead and mangled body of 
his companion and said: "And to think that 
that 's a' that 's left o' an MA. o' the Aberdeen 
University!" 

300 



Before the Battle of Arras 

This evening knowing I was to go "over the 
top" to-morrow, I spent my time between dinner 
and midnight in finishing my notes and in writ- 
ing letters. I went to bed at twelve-thirty, leav- 
ing word that I was to be called at four o'clock. 



301 



XXI 

MATERIEL FOR THE BATTLE OF ARRAS 

The description of the materiel of battle may 
seem to some a dull subject, but when we have on 
the fighting front a million of our own American 
boys, the question of guns and munitions will ac- 
quire for us a fascinating interest. 

In England, munitions have supplanted the 
weather as the standard subject of polite con- 
versation, and because all England now under- 
stands the importance of munitions and their re- 
lation to ultimate victory, her troops are win- 
ning ground without the fearful sacrifice of lives 
which marked their earlier efforts. 

Aeroplanes are of three types: observing ma- 
chines, which watch and direct the work of the 
artillery and infantry; fighting planes, which 
drive off German observers and thus deny infor- 
mation to the enemy, and bombarding machines, 
which attack and disorganize the German lines 
of communication. 

302 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

Modern artillery is of two types; guns and 
howitzers. The former sweeps the open; the 
latter bobs its shells high into the air so that they 
fall steeply and thus find their way into even the 
deepest enemy trenches. 

The bore of both the gun and the howitzer are 
"rifled," because the spiral grooves and ridges of 
the rifling impart to the shell, as it passes through 
the bore, a rotary motion around its longitudinal 
axis. Such a motion tends to keep the shell 
point-first as it flies through the air and prevents 
it from "tumbling" end over end. "Tumbling" 
increases air resistance, and consequently de- 
creases range accuracy. 

Guns have long barrels and fire relatively light 
shells. The comparative lightness of the shells 
cause them to be projected at high velocity to a 
great distance, and one of the most valuable char- 
acteristics of a gun, therefore, is that it is capable 
of reaching the enemy even at long range. Its 
high velocity also gives it a flat trajectory, or 
line of flight approximately parallel to the 
ground, so that its shells have a sweeping effect 
disastrous to troops in the open. 

In strong contrast to the sweeping effect of the 
gun, the howitzer is constructed to attain a very 

303 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

high angle of fire so that its heavier shells first 
mount into the air and then fall almost perpen- 
dicularly, and are thus able to search deep valleys 
and the bottoms of trenches which afford com- 
plete protection against gun fire. 

Thus the guns clear the open and drive the 
enemy into trenches and dug-outs, where the 
howitzers seek him out for destruction with their 
steeply falling shells. 

Present day artillery is divided into four 
classes : — 

( 1 ) Light field artillery, capable of travelling 
with the infantry across country irrespective of 
permanent roads, and able in a few seconds to go 
into action from columns of route. This includes 
the 3-inch 18 pounder, and the 4/4-inch howitzer. 
Each gun or caisson is drawn by six horses or 
mules. 

(2) Medium field artillery, capable of travel- 
ling over good country roads and able to go into 
action almost as quickly as the light artillery. 
This is also horse drawn, and includes the 5 -inch 
60 pounder gun and the 6-inch 120 pounder 
howitzer. 

(3) Heavy field artillery, capable of moving 

304 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

over permanent metalled roads, and able to get 
into action between sunset and sunrise. This is 
drawn by motor tractors, and includes the 6-inch 
100 pounder gun and the 9-inch 290 pounder 
howitzer. 

(4) Super-heavy artillery which is generally 
transported by rail and is usually fired from a 
railway mounting; this includes the 12-inch gun 
and the 15 -inch howitzer. 

A piece of artillery is made strong and heavy 
in proportion to the charge of powder it fires, 
rather than with reference to the weight of the 
shell. A piece throwing a heavy shell need 
weigh no more than one firing a light shell, pro- 
vided the charge is the same, although it is evident 
that with the same charge the lighter shell will 
be projected farther than the heavy one. Thus 
a light field gun, firing an eighteen pound shell 
a long distance at a high velocity, need be no heav- 
ier than a howitzer throwing a thirty-five pound 
shell as short distance at a high angle. 

Howitzers fire a heavy shell but use a rela- 
tively light firing charge. This decreases their 
range, but also reduces the strain on the gun and 
diminishes the length of the recoil. This limited 
recoil combined with its short barrel, enables the 

305 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

howitzer to attain a very high angle of fire, with- 
out causing its breach or loading mechanism, dur- 
ing the recoil, to conflict with the ground under- 
neath. As a result of this high angle of fire, the 
heavy shell first mounts up into the air and then 
falls steeply. The effect of the howitzer con- 
trasts strongly with the sweeping fire of the 
gun, for its shells fall almost perpendicularly. 

The most striking characteristics of the light 
field artillery are its mobility, and the rapidity 
with which it can fire in an emergency. It can be 
taken almost anywhere that infantry can go, and 
often is able to travel even faster than the in- 
fantry. Its normal rate of march is four miles 
an hour as against an average of two and one- 
half for the infantry, while for short distances, 
over good roads, it can achieve as much as sixteen 
miles an hour. 

The light field artillery is nearly always di- 
rectly associated with infantry, and forms an 
integral part of the infantry division, which pos- 
sesses an equal number of artillery batteries and 
infantry battalions. The feeling of brotherhood- 
in-arms between the light field artillery and the 
infantry is very strong. Each respects and 

306 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

appreciates the other and both do their utmost 
to promote effective teamwork. The light field 
artillery supports the infantry when it charges, 
follows it when victory has been gained, and de- 
fends it from counter attacks. Its principal ob- 
jective is the hostile infantry. 

The medium and heavy field howitzers are em- 
ployed to destroy enemy trenches, to cut down 
wire entanglements, and in counter-battery work 
are used against hostile artillery. Incidentally 
they kill great numbers of the enemy, particularly 
while being used to obliterate trenches. 

The medium and heavy field guns are of great 
importance, being extremely effective against 
either the enemy personnel or enemy batteries. 
They fire either shrapnel or high explosives. 
Their flat trajectory adds to the effectiveness of 
their action against both infantry and batteries, 
because bullets from their high explosive shells 
give an exceptionally large percentage of lateral 
"bouncing bursts. 55 

Their long range and extreme accuracy en- 
ables them to be effectively placed at great dis- 
tances behind the zone of operation, so that their 
ammunition supply trains do not add to the con- 

307 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

gestion of the transport lines in the immediate 
vicinity of the front. 

Moreover, if the enemy is forced to retreat, 
these guns, by firing upon his line of withdrawal, 
are capable of punishing him constantly and ac- 
curately ever after he commences his retrograde 
movement. They keep him on the move, harass 
him, prevent him from reinforcing, and in many 
ways multiply the fruits of victory. 

Their aim is corrected by observations from 
aeroplanes which go forward thousands of yards, 
in order to control accurately the fall of the shells. 

As an example of the effectiveness of the sixty 
and the one hundred pounder guns, working in 
conjunction with aeroplanes, to harass the ene- 
my's retreat, it is interesting to note that guns of 
this type were placed along a certain track dur- 
ing the month of March, at the epoch when the 
enemy was beginning his rapid retreat from the 
Somme front, and evacuating his positions in 
front of LeTransloy, Ligny, and Tilloy, falling 
back through Bapaume, which the Australians 
entered on March 17th. These big British guns 
fired straight down one of the enemy's princi- 
pal lines of retreat. They were placed so far 
back, that they in no way interfered with the ad- 

308 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

vance of the infantry and light artillery, which 
were having difficulty enough in moving up over 
bad and unimpaired roads, and needed all the 
room they could get. The heavy guns used both 
shrapnel and "bouncing" high explosive with 
great effect, as was most evident when the 
enemy's line of retreat came into our possession 
shortly afterwards. 

The super-heavy artillery, 12 inch guns and 
15 inch howitzers, combine extreme range with 
terrific destructive effect. They can be placed 
many miles behind the actual battle-front in 
the midst of a peaceful countryside, yet the 
shells, falling upon the enemy's fortifications, bil- 
lets or artillery, are cataclysmic in their effect. 

Trench mortars are now beginning to be re- 
garded as artillery, and must be discussed under 
the same heading. 

The Heavy Trench Mortar projectile is cylin- 
drical in shape and is kept true to its course by 
a stem, to which are affixed three vanes like the 
feathers of an arrow. It is familiarly known as 
"the flying pig." 

It explodes on impact, but with a delayed ac- 
309 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

tion of several seconds' duration, which gives it 
time to penetrate deep into the ground, where- 
upon the loose earth falls in on top of it and forms 
a tamping, which increases the lateral push of 
the explosion, causing it to stave in the walls of 
neighboring dug-outs and trenches. 

The Medium Trench Mortar throws a spher- 
ical projectile, shaped like an old-fashioned can- 
non-ball. On many sectors of the front, during 
the Battle of Arras, the German front-line and 
support-line trenches were destroyed exclusively 
by the use of trench mortars, which also in the 
same battle destroyed much of the wire in front 
of the nearer German positions. 

The Light Trench Mortar is a most important 
weapon. Its effect is tremendous, particularly 
on wire and personnel. It is the only weapon, 
other than those carried by the platoon, which in 
an attack advances with the infantry. Its only 
disadvantage is the difficulty of bringing up the 
large quantities of ammunition it consumes, but, 
all things considered, it is probably a more deadly 
weapon than any cannon. In many trench 
raids it furnishes a large part of the barrage. 

On one occasion, two Canadian battalions 
simultaneously raided two neighboring points in 

310 




A 6-inch heavy field gun which can throw a hundred pound shell 
more than ten miles. 




A 9.2-inch heavy field howitzer which can throw nearly a half 

a ton of shells a minute. 

British Heavy Field Artillery. 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

the German line. Each area was shut off on both 
sides and to the rear by a box barrage furnished 
by trench mortars. The Germans within the 
raided points could not escape, nor could re- 
inforcements reach them. 

The part which was played by these guns in 
this operation may be divided into three phases. 

Phase I. For three days previous to the at- 
tack for one hour a day they cut wire. The ef- 
fect was so perfect, that no wire remained to im- 
pede the infantry. 

Phase II. Certain strong-points and ma- 
chine-gun nests having been located, all the guns 
opened fire several minutes before the attack. 
This was so effective that when the British raid- 
ers went over the top, not a single German ma- 
chine-gun or sniper was able to open fire upon 
them. 

Phase III. Beginning at the moment of at- 
tack and continuing until the raid was over, these 
guns established such effective "blocks" and 
"barrages" around the two areas raided, that not 
a single German was able to break through them 
to escape from the area attacked. 

During the raid, the light field artillery, work- 
ing in thorough collaboration with the trench 

311 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

mortars, "barraged" the German support 
trenches. The attack was a complete success. 
A large number of Germans were killed or cap- 
tured, the raiders reached the second German 
line, and retired with only one man killed and 
one officer wounded, both of whom they brought 
back with them to their own lines. 

A British Artillery Brigade is usually com- 
posed of four batteries and is commanded by a 
lieutenant-colonel. Each battery is commanded 
by a major, assisted by one captain and several 
lieutenants. 

Heavy artillery is organized into batteries of 
four guns, and light or medium artillery into 
batteries of six guns. 

Batteries of four guns are, on the whole, more 
effective than those of six, and for this reason 
British batteries were at one epoch of the war 
temporarily reduced from six to four guns. 
This revision, however, had to be abandoned, and 
all light and medium batteries were reinstated 
upon a six-gun basis because the greatly enlarged 
British army found itself at one period too short 
of highly trained battery commanders to assign 
less than six guns to each. 

312 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

Efficient battery commanders cannot be im- 
provised and a nation which neglects to train a 
sufficient number in piping times of peace, finds 
itself seriously handicapped when war is suddenly 
declared. 

All the artillery weapons used by the British 
armies are of the most up-to-date model. All 
have pneumatic or other brakes to absorb the re- 
coil. 

In older guns, such as were used in the Civil 
War, the Spanish- American War, the Russo- 
Japanese War, and even in the early stages of 
the present war, the barrel was fixed to the car- 
riage. The force of the recoil engendered by 
the discharge drove the whole piece backward a 
number of yards, so that all the gunners had to 
get well out of the way before the shot was fired. 
As soon as the discharge occurred, the command 
"By hand to the front!" was given and the artil- 
lerymen laboriously rolled the piece back to 
its original position and reset it, all of which 
wasted much valuable time and effort, and 
greatly increased the difficulty of concealing the 
weapon. 

In the improved artillery, the barrel is no 
longer fixed to the carriage, but rests upon a 

313 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

cradle fastened thereto. When the piece is dis- 
charged, the barrel jumps back along the cradle, 
but the carriage remains stationary. Various 
brakes are used to slow up this motion and grad- 
ually to absorb the force of the recoil; a heavy 
spring automatically returns the barrel to its 
original position. The whole operation of recoil 
and return takes about one second of time. 

The result of this improved mechanism is such 
that when a gun is fired, one observes that the 
carriage and wheels remain stationary, while at 
the moment of discharge the barrel jumps 
straight to the rear about three feet and then 
slides back into place, ready for the next shot. 

In placing artillery, two things must be con- 
sidered; concealment and ammunition supply. 

Not only is it necessary that the guns and how- 
itzers should be so located that their ammunition 
can reach them steadily and in large quantities, 
but also in such a way that their supply trains 
may not congest important routes. Every effort 
has to be made by all arms of the service to keep 
open the main supply lines and metalled roads. 
This is exceedingly important because the abil- 
ity of the troops to use munition and supplies 

314 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

effectively, and the capacity of the factories to 
produce them are greater than the existing 
roads can carry. Roads are at present the weak- 
est link in the military chain. 

A single day of heavy modern battle traffic is 
sufficient to destroy the surface of even the best 
metalled road, if it is not constantly watched and 
mended every hour of the day and night. 

Along the main military roads, dozens of fa- 
tigue parties are to be seen eternally at work re- 
pairing the surface almost from minute to minute, 
and then they are hardly able to keep them 
in passable condition. Even with the most 
painstaking and constant efforts, the roads in the 
war zone are far from adequate to the demands 
made upon them. One must often be satisfied if 
they have a solid bottom, mud varying from two 
to eight inches in depth is endurable, provided it 
rests on solidity. Therefore, in placing batteries, 
this problem of road maintenance is always kept 
in mind. Light railways are, whenever possi- 
ble, built to facilitate ammunition supply and 
decrease congestion. 

Concealment of batteries from aerial observa- 
tion is obviously of the greatest importance. 

315 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

The enemy's aeroplanes photograph our zones 
of operation, and his Intelligence Officers, com- 
paring these photographs week by week, detect 
any considerable variation in the appearance of 
the landscape. 

Concealment often involves very difficult disci- 
plinary problems, because the enlisted personnel 
of a battery is always inclined to become care- 
less and show itself too much in the open, where 
some enemy aeroplane, for the moment hidden 
overhead in the clouds, is almost sure sooner or 
later to see them. 

Throughout the preparatory bombardment of 
the Battle of Arras the results were, by the most 
daring aeroplane reconnaissance, each day care- 
fully observed and reported to British head- 
quarters. Our aeroplanes flew far within the 
enemy's lines, often at an altitude of only two or 
three hundred yards, in order to take photo- 
graphs of the enemy trenches and wire entangle- 
ments, which would show in their fullest detail 
their condition and the results of the artillery 
execution already accomplished, thus enabling 
the next day's bombardment to be organized in 
such a way that targets thoroughly "prepared" 

316 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

need not be further subjected to additional and 
wasteful shelling. 

Observation is at the present time beyond com- 
parison the most important function of the aero- 
plane. In clear weather very little can be hid- 
den from it. Its reports are comprehensive 
because they are principally made in the 
form of photographs, which, when enlarged, show 
the details of the German positions. From the 
photographs, maps are worked out which indicate 
every trench in the enemy's line. These maps 
become the unfailing guide of the artillery and 
the infantry, who thus actually learn much more 
about the details of the enemy's position than they 
ever know about the geography of their own 
front lines. 

Without observation by the planes, the modern 
long range gun would lack much of its present 
usefulness, for no gun is effective unless an ob- 
server, located either in an observation post, a 
balloon, or an aeroplane can see the target and 
direct the fall of the shells. 

Nearly all really important points within the 
enemy's lines are carefully hidden from direct 
observation by hills, or are effectively concealed 
by artificial screens, constructed on the side fac- 

317 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

ing towards the British lines, so that it is often 
impossible to see the target from either an ob- 
servation post or a captive balloon. But the 
aeroplane which flies over and behind the enemy's 
front, is able to examine and photograph its de- 
tails from all angles. The landscape lies spread 
out beneath it like a gigantic map, upon which 
both the target and the shell-bursts are plainly 
visible ; with the aid of its wireless, the aeroplane 
can instantly communicate to the battery any 
error of aim. 

Before the Battle of Arras, certain officers and 
men were subtracted from each infantry bat- 
talion to serve as a nucleus of a new battalion in 
case the original one was wiped out. 

By means of this system, battalions, brigades 
and divisions are very quickly reconstructed in 
case of heavy loss, for the drafts of new men re- 
ceived from home are all efficient individual sol- 
diers, many of whom have seen previous service 
or are returning after recovering from wounds. 

The necessity for some such system will 
easily be understood when one realizes that the 
loss in killed, wounded, sick and missing which 
is sustained by the battalion of a division which 

318 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

happens to bear the brunt of a big modern attack, 
almost invariably amounts to from seventy-five 
to ninety per cent, of its effectives as they were 
numbered on the day the battle began. 

Thus one company, known to the author, went 
into last summer's offensive on the Somme a 
hundred and sixty strong, and came out with only 
sixteen men and one officer ; while the battalion to 
which this company belonged went into action 
with seven hundred officers and men, and came 
out with less than one hundred and fifty. 

A majority of the losses sustained in battle are, 
however, temporary ones. Most of the wounded 
recover, but not soon enough to obviate the 
necessity for rebuilding the battalion. Only a 
very small percentage of the casualties are in 
killed. A very considerable number of the 
men lost during a battle are sick. Of the actual 
battle casualties about seventy per cent, receive 
wounds from which they completely recover, 
about fifteen per cent, are killed or die of wounds, 
and the remaining fifteen per cent, are perma- 
nently disabled or taken prisoners. 

Thousands of people who are now anxiously 
following the progress of the Allied armies are 

319 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

watching the map of France and Belgium, and 
accumulating much discouragement from the 
slow rate at which German armies are being 
pushed back towards the Rhine. They measure 
the territory over which the enemy swept forward 
in the first few short weeks after he assaulted a 
surprised world, and then grow pessimistic over 
the small territorial gains the Allies have won in 
the past year. 

When we want to find reliable military princi- 
ples, we usually fall back upon Napoleon's mili- 
tary axioms ; he it was who said that the only way 
to conquer an enemy was to destroy or capture 
his army; that to acquire territory or bag cities 
counted for little in the final result. To-day the 
German army is being slowly hammered to pieces 
in battles like the Somme and Arras. To Na- 
poleon, one of his marshals reported that he had 
achieved a great victory. Napoleon replied 
sternly, "Where are your prisoners? Without 
prisoners there is no real victory!" This ques- 
tion strikes at the crux of the whole matter, for 
the number of prisoners taken bears an almost 
certain ratio to the losses in killed and wounded ; 
no man wins a decisive victory without prisoners 
to show for it. 

320 



Materiel for the Battle of Arras 

"Where are the prisoners?" 

In the first two years of the war, Germany took 
30,000 British prisoners, while the British cap- 
tured only about 10,000 Germans; but in the first 
six months of this third year, the Germans took 
only 10,000 British prisoners, while in the same 
time the British captured 80,000 Germans. 

Not only has the balance of losses been re- 
versed, but multiplied 24 times in favor of the 
British, for odds which were at first 10 to 30 in 
favor of the Germans are now 80 to 10 in favor 
of the British, and victory is now just as truly 
as in Napoleon's time proved by the number of 
prisoners taken. Therefore do not let us be dis- 
couraged mulling over the map of France, but 
count the prisoners, the increased ratio of whose 
number is an unfailing proof of the disintegration 
of the German army ; a disintegration which must 
always precede the victorious ending of any war. 



321 



XXII 

THE BATTLE OE AREAS 

At the Battle of Arras about half a million 
British troops executed a successful attack 
against an approximately equal number of Ger- 
mans. 

The battle was fought on a front of ten miles, 
beginning at the northern end of Vimy Bidge, 
and extending southward along the foot of the 
ridge and across the river Scarpe at Arras to a 
village called Tilloy, which was not far from 
Bullecourt. 

Like all modern battles, it was divided into 
two equally important parts; the preparatory 
bombardment by the artillery, and the final as- 
sault of the infantry. 

The artillery preparation lasted three weeks 
and culminated in three days of the most intense 
bombardment the world has ever seen. Hun- 
dreds upon hundreds of batteries were constantly 

32£ 



The Battle of Arras 

in action, many of them firing eight to nine thou- 
sand shells, or the equivalent of the entire load 
which can be carried by a French railway freight 
train. 

Day by day the German fortifications, 
trenches, observation posts and wire entangle- 
ments were wrecked and obliterated, and thou- 
sands of enemy troops were killed in their dug- 
outs and shelters, while the survivors were thor- 
oughly demoralized. Even during the night- 
time, the British guns systematically bombarded 
with shrapnel the enemy's communication 
trenches, roads, billets, and railroad stations, in 
order to harass his supply columns and to pre- 
vent his troops from repairing during the hours 
of darknesc the damage done to his fortifications 
during the daylight. 

The infantry assault began at dawn on the 
morning of Easter Monday, the ninth of April, 
and its initial phase was executed by about a 
dozen infantry divisions of more than twenty 
thousand men each. The assault was intended to 
complete the work of the artillery and reap the 
full fruits of victory. 

Its aim was to capture the enemy's positions, 
take possession of the territory he defended, de- 

323 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

stroy his organizations and munitions, and kill 
or take prisoners large numbers of his soldiers. 

The British combatant troops, which actively 
participate in such an assault, as distinct from 
supply, ordinance and line of communication 
troops, are organized into Infantry Divisions, 
Heavy Artillery Brigades, and Aeroplane 
Squadrons. 

An Aeroplane Squadron consists of thirty to 
forty machines, a heavy artillery brigade of a 
score of big guns or howitzers, and the infantry 
division of about twenty thousand men. 

These three organizations are the principal tac- 
tical or combat units employed in modern war- 
fare. Aeroplanes observe the enemy, artillery 
wears him down, and infantry administers the 
final knockout blow. Each is essential to the 
other two and the three combine to make the 
strategical unity of a present day campaign. 

An Infantry Division is not, as its name might 
seem to indicate, composed exclusively of in- 
fantry, but of infantry supported by all other 
arms in their proper proportion. Of its twenty 
thousand men, only about twelve thousand are 
infantry, the remaining eight thousand being di- 



The Battle of Arras 

vided among transport troops, light field artil- 
lery, engineers, medical corps, machine gunners, 
signal troops, cavalry and trench mortar troops. 
The Division contains all the various arms of the 
military service, excepting only aeroplanes and 
heavy artillery. 

The normal amount of light field artillery at- 
tached to a division is three brigades, each com- 
prising four six-gun batteries, making twelve 
batteries in all. The three brigades are under 
the command of an artillery general, subordinate 
to the major-general commanding the division. 
Thus, in addition to its other troops, each division 
contains three infantry brigades and three light 
field artillery brigades. 

Of the three principal tactical units, the in- 
fantry division is the most important. Armies 
fight largely in terms of infantry divisions, which 
relay each other in holding a sector of the front 
as well as in attacking, in standing in reserve, in 
resting, or in reorganizing. 

British infantry divisions are organized after 
a standard pattern. Each one possesses three 
infantry brigades of four battalions apiece, — 
each battalion having a normal strength of over 
a thousand men. 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

A battalion consists of four companies of over 
two hundred men each, with a battalion staff of 
about one hundred and fifty men. A company 
is subdivided into four platoons of four sections 
each. The section has a normal strength of 
twelve men, and is the equivalent of the Ameri- 
can squad. 

Each division is commanded by a major-gen- 
eral, each brigade by a brigadier-general, each 
battalion by a lieutenant-colonel assisted by a 
major, each company by a captain assisted by a 
junior captain, each platoon by a lieutenant, as- 
sisted by a platoon sergeant and each section by 
a sergeant or corporal. 

At the Battle of Arras, each assaulting British 
infantry division was assigned three successive 
objective lines, to be captured and consolidated in 
turn by the three infantry brigades composing the 
division. 

The third objective line was situated in the 
open country, behind the enemy's last de- 
fenses, at a depth in some cases as great as four 
miles. 

At "zero hour," as the moment when the 
assault begins is called, the first and second bri- 

326 



The Battle of Arras 

gades of each division went "over the top" to- 
gether. 

The first brigade in one rush went straight 
through the enemy front line trenches to an ob- 
jective line behind them. It was followed by 
"moppers-up," detached from the second brigade 
to guard dug-out entrances and prevent Huns, 
caught in the rush and left behind in dug-outs 
and machine-gun emplacements in the German 
trenches, from attacking our men in the rear after 
they had passed through. 

The second brigade followed close behind the 
first one, until it reached the enemy trenches 
where it rejoined its "moppers-up," cleared the 
dug-outs they were guarding, consolidated the 
captured positions and acted as a reserve, until it 
became evident that the first brigade was actu- 
ally in possession of its objective. 

When this had occurred, the second brigade 
abandoned the captured trenches and advanced 
through the first brigade to the second objective 
line. 

The third brigade remained behind their orig- 
inal front for some hours after zero, and did 
not advance on its most distant objective until 
the first and second brigade had entirely captured 

327 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

and consolidated the first and second lines, and 
the divisional light field artillery had been moved 
up across the conquered ground. 

When the zero hour of the Battle of Arras 
approached, the British guns, which for days had 
been slowly and methodically hammering the 
German trenches, prepared to assume a much 
more rapid rate of fire, for when the moment of 
assault finally arrives, the preparatory bombard- 
ment ceases, and the guns take up the new duty 
of establishing barrages. 

Barrages are of two kinds, Standing and 
Creeping. The Standing Barrage, called 
"drum fire" by the Germans, consists of a hail of 
shells falling constantly upon some one impor- 
tant point of the enemy fortifications. 

A Creeping Barrage, called a "curtain of fire" 
by the French, is a wall of bursting shrapnel 
which, in accordance with a prearranged schedule, 
moves steadily forward by short "lifts" of fifty or 
a hundred yards. Behind its shelter, the lines of 
infantry are able to advance in comparative 
safety. 

All barrages have the same principal purpose, 
—to render it extremely dangerous for the 



4**5 





.i 



' 




■ &*: 



■ ■ ■ 



The Battle of Arras 

enemy to come out of his dug-outs and impede 
the assaulting British infantry. 

In barrage fire, each battery is assigned to 
a definite objective in the enemy's defenses; 
front line, support line, strong-points, commu- 
nication trenches or observation posts. Nothing 
is neglected, nothing escapes the rain of shells. 

So perfect was the work of the British gun- 
ners at Arras, and so few shells burst "short," 
that the infantry was able to follow within fifty 
yards of the barrage as it moved over each suc- 
cessive German trench. 

Infantry soldiers follow the barrage closely, 
even if a few men are hit by its shells, for the 
British infantry learned at the Battle of the 
Somme that the moment a barrage is lifted from 
the enemy's front trenches, a race for the para- 
pet begins between the British infantry crossing 
no-man's-land and the enemy's machine-gunners 
and bombers waiting at the bottom of the bomb- 
proof dug-outs for the first moment of safety. 
If an enemy machine-gunner or bomber can reach 
his post even six or eight seconds before the first 
line of storming troops arrive, he almost invari- 
ably inflicts scores of casualties on the British 
infantry in comparison with which a ten per cent. 

329 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

loss from their own barrage is of minor im- 
portance. 

In front of the division with which I advanced 
and which operated south of the River Scarpe, 
there were four successive enemy trench lines, 
the distance between the first and last of these 
lines being about four hundred yards. 

Behind these four trenches was a stretch of 
comparatively unfortified country, about two 
thousand yards deep, held only by small forces 
of the enemy, and by their snipers and machine- 
gunners. It had been impossible, previous to 
the assault, to locate definitely these forces, be- 
cause their positions were cleverly concealed, were 
too far within the enemy's original front to per- 
mit of acurate observation and had never revealed 
themselves by premature firing. 

Before commencing a description of my own 
experience in the Battle of Arras, it may be well 
to explain briefly certain elements in the psy- 
chology of the modern infantry soldier. 

His life is a busy one. Training periods and 
route marches alternate with long spells of hold- 
ing sloppy trenches in spite of snipers' bullets, 
bombardments, trench-mortar shells, rifle gren- 

330 



The Battle of Arras 

ades, bombs, gas attacks, liquid fire and various 
other manifestations of the enemy's vigilance and 
pugnacity. 

During his turn in the trenches, the soldier re- 
mains constantly under cover. His trenches are 
always under surveyance by keen-eyed enemy 
snipers and machine-gunners, who, themselves 
hidden from view, watch intently the silhouette 
of his parapet to detect and punish his slightest 
indiscretion. If he carelessly exposes a hand in 
throwing a shovel of dirt over the parados, or 
shows his head when walking through a shallow 
section of trench, he instantly calls forth accurate 
enemy bullets. 

Therefore he is taught to keep his head down, 
to hide his person, to remain invisible, — instruc- 
tions which quite naturally coincide with his own 
personal wishes. 

Sign-boards meet him at every turn stating: — ■ 
"All ranks will keep to the trenches," or "This 
road not to be used during the hours of day- 
light." 

He becomes a mole, perpetually digging his 
way underground, instead of walking boldly in 
the open. 

His sergeant, who on the march continually 
331 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

cries "Close up, close up, keep closed up," in the 
trenches, ceaselessly admonishes him, "Keep your 
head down, you fool!" 

Thus ageraphobia, — fear of the open, — be- 
comes second nature to him. It is instilled into 
him by his officers and sergeants and is strength- 
ened by the promptings of his own instinct for 
self-preservation. 

Sooner or later, however, there comes a dra- 
matic moment in the life of every infantryman 
when he is expected suddenly to overcome his 
ageraphobia, to climb over the sheltering para- 
pet, and walk boldly across the open towards 
the enemy. 

As that moment approaches, he finds himself 
standing with his pals in the bottom of a trench 
which, although much like a hundred other 
trenches that he has known, yet bears for him 
a new and never to be forgotten significance, as 
his point of departure when he goes "over the 
top" of a parapet and charges out across open 
wind-swept no-man's-land, to hunt out and en- 
gage his hitherto unseen antagonist in that close 
hand-to-hand conflict, where eye meets eye and 
bayonet crashes against bayonet and men meet 
ugly deaths. 

332 



The Battle of Arras 

As the "zero minute" approaches, he realizes 
that he is about to live through the most vital and 
thrilling moment of his whole life. And such 
were the thoughts and realizations which filled 
my own mind at 4.30 a. m. on the morning of 
Easter Monday as I made my way through the 
dismal, unlighted streets of battered Arras, on 
my way to the particular front line trench from 
which I was to go over the top at dawn. 

By five o'clock I had reached my post. The 
air and earth trembled with the steady unrelent- 
ing preparatory cannonade which continued up 
to the very minute of the zero hour. The hori- 
zon behind us flickered unremittingly with the 
flashes of our guns. In front, the enemy posi- 
tions were outlined against the darkness by the 
blood-red flashes of bursting shells. 

The weather was cold and cloudy. Sleet and 
snow fell intermittently. A twenty mile wind 
was blowing from us towards the Germans. 

The noise of the guns, a sea of sound, drowned 
all conversation. It was impossible to conquer 
the feeling that the whole proceeding was unreal. 
One's psychology failed to grasp the actuality 
of the danger whose presence was academically 
recognized. Everything seemed a dream in 

333 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

which bullets and shells could not possibly be 
fatal. 

Each second seemed interminable as we stood 
in the bottom of the black trench, looking up at 
the dark mass of its parapet bulked against a 
sky, just beginning to turn from black to gray. 
We had due time for reflection upon many 
things, a question crept into my mind: Now 
in the final analysis, when face to face with 
the utmost reality of battle, was it worth while 
to have voluntarily left my own country and 
have gone so far afield to "do my bit" against 
Prussianism? The question called up no feel- 
ing of regret, but only a satisfaction that I was 
at last face to face with our enemies in the 
open of a European battlefield, instead of being 
in the midst of skulking pacifists and propagan- 
dists with whom one has to deal in America — 
sexless creatures who bay the moon and slink 
away from danger— men who make cowardice 
their religion, and demagogism their profession; 
men who believe only in such soft conceptions of 
right as need no defending; men who would have 
us submit tamely to tyranny ; who would have us 
forget and forego the militant church of our fore- 
fathers. 

334 



The Battle of Arras 

The second phase of the artillery preparation 
is drawing to its close. For three long days and 
nights the German trenches and fortifications 
have been subjected to a terrific and continuous 
bombardment. Half a million dollars' worth of 
ammunition has been fired into single acres of 
the enemy's territory. 

For the moment, the mind's chief worry is a 
fear lest the body may not be able to scramble 
quickly enough up the wall of the trench, and 
may in consequence be a moment later over the 
top than the bodies of one's comrades. 

The hands of my wrist-watch show a half min- 
ute before zero. For one moment the roar of the 
guns dies away. Their flashes no longer il- 
lumines the sky behind us. We stand alertly 
motionless through an instant of uncanny still- 
ness, broken by the bursting of a single German 
shell. Then, suddenly, our guns burst out again 
in one dense, jarring, appalling roar which takes 
exclusive possession of the realm of sound, blot- 
ting out all else. 

Our time has come ! We clamber up the para- 
pet, and find ourselves in the open, — members 
of one of many advancing lines of men. Sleet 
beats against our bare necks and we feel it rat- 

335 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

tie on our steel helmets. Thousands of British 
guns continue to crash out in a continuous un- 
broken crash, and barrages beat down upon all 
the German trenches. 

Some conception of the total effect and rapid- 
ity of the fire may be gained from the fact, 
that the guns eventually became so hot that 
buckets of water thrown into the bore through 
the breech came out of the muzzle as steam. If 
the guns, caissons, trench mortars and heavy ma- 
chine-guns, which supported the infantry, had 
been placed hub to hub, they would have formed 
a continuous and unbroken line behind the en- 
tire ten miles of the front of attack. 

As the storm of shells bursts upon the enemy 
trenches, the German infantry send up into the 
air great numbers of golden rockets. These are 
their "S. O. S." signals which inform their ar- 
tillery that they are helpless under barrages and 
must have artillery retaliation. The cold gray 
dawning sky is lit up for miles, in each direction 
along the front, by hundreds of these rockets, 
fired wildly into the air by the German infantry, 
clamouring for support. 

They throw into weird relief the long lines of 
336 



The Battle of Arras 

British infantry already picking their way at a 
walk across no-man's-land, — the British soldier 
of to-day charges at a walk because the disor- 
ganization which immediately supervenes upon a 
charge at a run, is far more disastrous than the 
increased casualties which are caused when the 
men advance more slowly. 

In two or three minutes every German bat- 
tery is, in response to the S. O. S., firing 
furiously upon our front line trenches. Shells 
of all calibre and description — shrapnel, "pip 
squeaks," "whizz-bangs," "Jack-Johnsons," and 
"coal scuttles" are bursting behind us in a per- 
fect hurricane and making life exceedingly un- 
pleasant for the surgeons, stretcher-bearers, run- 
ners, messengers, the wounded and prisoners who 
are obliged to pass through it. 

All the infantry of the first two brigades in 
each British division is already safely over the 
top and well out into no-man's-land before this 
bombardment starts, while the third brigade in 
each division is still waiting its turn at a safe 
distance several thousand yards behind the 
lines. 

The wall of our creeping barrage marches 
before us; it is made up of hundreds of flame- 

337 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

shot puffs of shrapnel bursting over the enemy 
trenches, and of hundreds of black geysers of 
flying dirt and debris along the trenches them- 
selves. The sound is dense, terrific. The air 
is alive with shells, which seem to cover us like a 
roof, so that we feel a sense of exhilaration as 
though leagued with supernatural forces. 

Throughout the attack, the co-ordination of 
artillery and infantry is marvellous. The in- 
fantry in its advance does not encounter a single 
unwrecked German parapet, nor a patch of un- 
cut German wire larger than the top of a writ- 
ing desk. All has been destroyed by the pre- 
paratory bombardment. 

While we are in the open, barrage fire makes 
it impossible for the few survivors of the enemy 
forces to appear on their parapets. The enemy's 
front line trenches are the subject of a storm of 
shrapnel, and shrapnel bullets were falling upon 
them at the rate of four bullets per square yard 
per minute. After the battle bullets littered the 
surface of the ground like hailstones. 

Protected by this curtain of fire, our infantry 
advances at a walk unscathed across the two or 
three hundred yards of no-man's-land which in- 

338 



The Battle of Arras 

tervened between them and the enemy's first line. 

After the suspense of the tense waiting in the 
trenches, the actual battle at first proves some- 
thing of an anti-climax. As we advance there 
seem to be no casualties. If there are any bul- 
lets, their strike is unseen in the dim light of 
early dawn, and their whisper is unheard amid 
the roar of the artillery. 

We pass through what had once been the 
enemy's barbed wire entanglement, now reduced 
to flattened tangles of broken strands, upon 
which we step and through which we easily ad- 
vance. We reach the enemy's first trench. It 
is empty except for the mangled body of a sin- 
gle German. 

We look for tragedy, but find instead only 
grim comedy. We rush the battered parapet 
of the enemy's second lines, expecting to dis- 
cover a group of savage Boches lying in wait 
behind it. On the crest we pause an instant in 
the middle of our stride before leaping down, and 
see below us not deadly enemies, but only a sin- 
gle, gray figure crouching pathetically against 
a battered traverse. Both its hands are high 
over head, while a shrill voice cries over and over 

339 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

and over again — "Kamerad, I haff dree children 
— Kamerad, I haff dree children." 

The little German is sent to the rear, hands 
still in air and shrill voice still crazily reiter- 
ating its plaint. 

In the narrow bottom of the third trench, a 
small Scotchman engages a huge Boche in mor- 
tal combat. Their bayonets crash together. In 
the same instant, the German receives a cut upon 
the arm and the little Jock a stab in the thigh. 
A second Scot, bigger than the first, runs down 
the side of the trench and takes the German in 
flank, giving him a terrific coup de grace with 
his bayonet, as he literally falls upon him from 
the parapet. Far from welcoming this sudden 
assistance, the little Scot looks in anger at 
his big comrade and says, as they start off side 
by side in search of further prey, "Why could 
you no keep oot o' there, Sandie? Why could 
you no gang awa and find a Boche o' yer ain? 
That was ma Boche." 

I remain for some time in the enemy's old sec- 
ond line with the companies which are "consoli- 
dating" it. The other companies press on vic- 
toriously. Their prisoners roll back to us in 

340 



The Battle of Arras 

droves, escorted by a scattering of slightly 
wounded soldiers. 

A huge Jock approaches, kilt swinging from 
side to side as he strides. He has a "Blighty" 
wound and his head is picturesque swathed with 
bloody bandages. He drives before him three 
prisoners. In one hand he carries his rifle, and in 
the other a bomb from which the safety pin has 
been extracted — and lost — so that if he relin- 
quishes his grasp upon it for even an instant, it 
will explode in four seconds. 

He meets a comrade who looks at the prison- 
ers and asks: "Did you take them a' yerseF, 
Jock?" 

"Yes," replies Jock, "the twa big yins came 
along willingly, but the sma' one" — pointing to 
a very plump little German who was simply pep- 
pered with wounds — "wished to fecht. So Ah 
gave him a lemon (bomb) an' that didna satisfy 
him, so Ah gave him anither" ; and then holding 
up the live bomb in his hand, "Do ye happen to 
hae a spare pin aboot ye ? No ! 'T is too bad, for 
Ah do na ken whatever Ah shall do with this 
lemon." 

Whereupon he resumed his way, but not be- 
fore he had asked a chaplain, a lieutenant, and 

341 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

an indignant stretcher-bearer if they happened 
"to hae a spare pin aboot" them. 

• •••••• 

The companies who "went through" several 
hours ago and left us behind to dig, have now 
vanquished and consolidated a whole new zone 
of territory, and we in turn are advancing to "go 
through" them to a third zone of country. 

Finally, having passed through the fourth 
German trench line, we mount a gentle slope 
upon which German howitzer shells are bursting, 
and topping its crest, come out upon a level, 
barren, wind-swept plateau in full view of the 
enemy. There is no longer for us any element 
of comedy in the situation. 

In a line we advance at a walk. Three or four 
yards from elbow to elbow intervenes between 
each man and his neighbor. Twenty yards be- 
hind us follows another line, and behind it an- 
other and yet another. The successive lines are 
like waves following each other up a wide 
breach to break over and destroy forts of sand 
built by children. 



The Battle of Arras 

On my left walks a corporal. I notice that 
his tightly set lips are very white, but his head 
is carried high and his eyes are firmly fixed upon 
the distant German positions. 

On my right marches a slender boyish lieu- 
tenant, who for the first time commands his 
platoon in battle. He looks towards me for a 
moment, his face illuminated by an incredulous 
smile of self -revelation as he says, — "Why, I 'm 
not a bit afraid. I only feel as though I were 
trotting out upon a foot-ball field for my first 
big Rugby match." 

With a soft, insinuating, melancholy whisper, 
bullets commence to cut through the air around 
us. "Pyeeoou — Pyeeoou — Pyeeoou," they say. 
Faster and faster they come; and nearer and 
nearer. Those which pass very close exchange 
their gentle whisper for an angry venomous 
crack, like the snap of a black-snake whip. . . . 
A crack, a second, two together, a score. One 
feels as if one were wading through a sea of bul- 
lets and is each moment astounded to find oneself 
still unhurt. . . . 

There is a sound like the blow of a rattan cane 
beating upon a rug. It is a bullet striking the 
young lieutenant on my right ... he wilts, 

843 



The Note-Booh of an Intelligence Officer 

changing in an instant from an animate being to 
an inert, inarticulate, crumpled object. 

We ever advance at a steady walk, each step 
a matter of moment and the subject of separate 
consideration and realization. From somewhere 
in front of us there breaks out the staccato me- 
tallic rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of a German machine- 
gun. This new sound, which is like a steam riv- 
eter driving red-hot rivets into a distant bridge, 
is added to the noise of bullets and bursting 
shells. Its automatic reiteration fills us with 
cold dread. It occurs to me that "machine" gun 
is a very expressive name, for its sound is in- 
humanly impersonal. 

I glance to my left. The long waving line of 
men, still charging at the same fast walk, holds 
its continuity like a chain of links. Each man 
keeps his appointed station. Occasionally an in- 
dividual is delayed by a shell hole or a bit of 
rough ground, and has to run two or three steps 
to regain his place. The determination to win, 
enforced by the habit of discipline, is stronger 
than either the eagerness to rush madly on, or the 
desire to stop and take cover. It is at such su- 
preme moments that raw troops waver, while 



The Battle of Arras 

disciplined armies pass on to victory. None but 
seasoned soldiers can pass safely between the 
twin temptations of either breaking into a furious 
cheering rush upon the enemy, or of disappearing 
safely into the shelter of the deep shell-craters, 
which by thousands dot the field of battle. 

The number of these craters is being con- 
stantly increased by German high explosive 
shells, which arrive with a crescendo screech, and 
burst about us with loud "blaams." They 
throw showers of mud far and wide, and among 
the whizzing chunks of mud fly jagged frag- 
ments of hot steel. 

There is a particularly loud and sudden 
screech followed by a deafening concussion. 
Something smacks my cheek a stinging blow and 
leaves behind it a feeling of wetness. I brush 
my cheek with my hand and glance at my fin- 
gers. They are covered with — mud. 

The corporal on my left has also been struck, 

but only by flying mud. The man beyond him 

has been literally cut in two at the waist by a huge 

shell splinter. 

• ••••• . 

Several minutes later, a blow on my left arm 
turns me completely about. It has all the force 

345 



The Note-Book of an Intelligence Officer 

of a full swing of a baseball bat. I whirl, stum- 
ble and then sit down rather weakly. A rifle bul- 
let has gone clean through the arm, shattering 
the bone near the elbow, and the blood runs off 

my finger tips. . . . 

....... 

Wave ^fter wave of grim-faced fighting men 
march past me to victory. Before sunset they 
are to break through all the German trenches, 
penetrate two thousand yards into the open 
country behind the last enemy line, and hold 
every foot of ground they gain. 

The results obtained on the 9th of April by 
our division are typical of those achieved by all 
the assaulting divisions. While losing less than 
a thousand men itself, it inflicted more than nine 
thousand casualties upon the famous German di- 
vision which was opposed to it, captured more 
than a score of guns, took fifteen hundred un- 
wounded prisoners and the general commanding 
the hostile division. 



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